An arctic front just before the end of December will be followed by multiple waves of snow near the Great Lakes, but the first week of the new year could bring a much wider-reaching storm.
00:00In the forecast feed, we're going to look ahead to a very cold week, colder air returning,
00:05charging back in across the Midwest and the East, and also we're looking ahead to the
00:10week after New Year's, the first complete week of 2026, when there is the chance for
00:16an East Coast storm.
00:18Some of the pieces of the puzzle, some of the ingredients are in place, so we need to
00:22keep a close eye on this.
00:24Now, the details are all going to be something that are not going to be clear this early
00:28on, but a small change in the positioning of a disturbance in the northern branch of
00:34the jet stream or the southern branch of the jet stream could make all the difference
00:37between a big storm and maybe a limited snow event that just brushes the coast.
00:42Now, in the short term, we do want to take a look at how temperatures are dropping.
00:46It's been a big drop.
00:47From Sunday afternoon around 4 p.m. to Monday afternoon at 4 p.m., take a look at this.
00:52We have seen a 49-degree drop in Louisville, Kentucky.
00:56That's a huge drop, a spectacular drop in that period of time.
01:00Nashville jumped from the 70s down into the 30s, and a big drop in St. Louis as well.
01:07Temporarily warming a little bit in other areas farther east, but we're getting ready
01:12for the big drop for many along the East Coast.
01:15So, overall, the flavor of the week is certainly going to be a cold one here with temperatures
01:20staying low, cold waves Monday into Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, round after round.
01:26There are a couple of Alberta Clippers that are swinging down, and each of them will have
01:30a cold front associated with them.
01:32So, again, a series of fronts just reinforcing the chill across the region this week.
01:37So, we want to get into the models here and take a look into next week.
01:41So, overall, as we first begin in the short term, as I find my mouse here, let's begin
01:49with the current setup.
01:50And you can see the Arctic front that's pushing through is driving much colder air in.
01:56And as that slides east and moves out to sea, we have that flow that's going to be driving
02:02colder air in across the Great Lakes.
02:03There will be some lake effect snow that follows.
02:05We'll see rounds of lake effect snow over the next few days.
02:08And as we move forward in time, here comes another system.
02:12This one's pretty robust, a decent shortwave, at least in the northern branch of the jet stream
02:15for Wednesday.
02:17This is New Year's Eve and a New Year's Day.
02:19A new installment of cold is going to be following.
02:22We'll be dealing with readings around 30 or so at Times Square, so it could be worse.
02:27But it's certainly not going to be a mild time out there with the breeze.
02:30It's going to be a cold one.
02:31So, dress warm if you're going to be out there watching the ball drop.
02:34Or maybe you were in other areas here where there's a local tradition.
02:38They drop a walleye in Port Clinton, Ohio.
02:40It's going to be a cold one there as well.
02:42But overall, these disturbances that kick through the northeast, they're fairly low amplitude
02:48in that they don't dig all the way down to the Carolinas.
02:51They are, again, mainly sequestered into the Great Lakes region.
02:55So, it's a series of Alberta Clippers in through the beginning of next week and even another one,
03:01Monday to Tuesday, the 5th and 6th of January.
03:05Here's the European model just to show that the flavor of the message here is about the same.
03:10There are disturbances that cross the southern U.S., but they're so far removed from the northern branch of the jet stream
03:17that, again, there's not going to be much interaction.
03:19You can see multiple states in between the two.
03:22So, what does that do?
03:24It's going to bring us some rain showers to the south.
03:26There's one of these storm systems in the European Saturday into Sunday bringing a pretty good round of rain.
03:31Maybe a few embedded thunderstorms in Georgia and the Carolinas moving out to sea.
03:36And here's another depiction of that with the GFS.
03:38Very similar, very similar this weekend with that staying far removed from any interaction with the northern branch of the jet stream.
03:45As I was mentioning, we're dealing with these disturbances that bring some clippers through.
03:51There will be some lake effect snow that follows a few of these as well.
03:54And when it comes to the snowfall amounts in the northeast through the weekend, you can see that there's potential.
04:00In the GFS, we're looking at 13 inches of snow in Erie, PA.
04:04It would come in a few waves, though, not all at once.
04:06And we've had two feet in some parts of Michigan early this week.
04:11We're not going to see the same numbers there up into northern Michigan, though, or western Michigan with this over the next several days.
04:17Because the heavier lake effect snow and the colder air is going to be centered a little farther east.
04:23So, this will impact areas in western New York and western, northwestern Pennsylvania.
04:28Far northeast Ohio a bit more.
04:29Here's the European model with a similar tune, 9.4 inches in Erie, 4.7 by Monday morning in Buffalo.
04:38But in between the two, certainly a one to two foot snow event, if not a little locally more, for the Chautauqua Ridge south of the city of Buffalo and east northeast of the city of Erie.
04:49Also going to see a lot there into areas near Oswego.
04:51I'm a little more interested, though, in the final two minutes here in what goes on after that.
04:55Here we get into the 8th and 9th of January, Thursday, not this Thursday, but the week after New Year's Day.
05:03And here we get into a pretty dynamic system.
05:06It's a negatively tilted trough.
05:09We've got a southern branch disturbance hanging back.
05:12And, again, some of the ingredients are in place.
05:16This becomes even more negatively tilted down and to the right.
05:20Some of the ingredients are in place for some snow somewhere near the east coast, I-95.
05:24Then that lifts moving through New England.
05:26Here's the European model.
05:28How does this play out from the 7th to the 8th?
05:30Similar timing.
05:31There's the GFS.
05:32Here's the European.
05:33Considering we're a week and a half out from this, there's pretty good agreement here.
05:37And, again, it's a deep trough, full amplitude or full latitude trough, we might even call it the European depiction.
05:45The GFS is a little more separated.
05:47GFS, we've got the southern branch feature hanging back in Texas, northern branch feature over the Great Lakes.
05:52At the same time, it's a much more unified system with the European.
05:57So we need to keep an eye on this.
05:59And as we take a look at the model forecast of precipitation, the GFS, because the southern branch features out of phase,
06:07there's a week disturbance that outruns the thing that hangs back in Texas.
06:10They're a little bit out of phase.
06:11It's a little discombobulated.
06:13But you can see the model does produce some snow in southern New England, a little snow in Philly, Baltimore, and D.C., and a little bit of rain for the east coast.
06:22But, meanwhile, the European, it's a much more unified, single, full latitude wave.
06:29It's set up just a little far east.
06:31That would bring some decent snow to Boston and parts of Maine, but it would be a little far east for the I-95.
06:36So the overall message here is that we're a week and a half out.
06:40Details are going to be finicky, but some of the ingredients are there for some significant snow for the east coast.
06:46So we have to keep an eye on this one over the next several days.
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