00:00here on the forecast feed we want to jump into the new year 2026 is upon us we've got the cold
00:11in the northeast and across the great lakes but will we see any more significant snow there's a
00:17pattern change on the way that's going to reorient the storm track some of the snow is going to be
00:21shifting into the sierra for the short term we'll look at the big picture some influences at play
00:26but before we totally move forward i want to take a quick look back at december which was a
00:30cold month across the great lakes the midwest the ohio valley mid-atlantic and the northeast we've
00:36had uh below average temperatures below the historical average here across that region and
00:41above average temperatures across most of the west at least that's the way most of december has
00:47panned out and one of the drivers here has been a persistent lobe of strong low pressure aloft
00:56upstairs over parts of eastern ontario western quebec at times over the eastern u.s big trough
01:03and there's been an extension of the polar vortex at times uh so again a lobe of the coldest air of
01:11the hemisphere that's become uh kind of detached from the arctic and kind of wavered south at times
01:19offering some of the coldest of the cold over eastern canada and we've been uh impacted by that
01:24in the peripheral way here in the eastern u.s as well now i want to take a look at the computer
01:29models here to show you how we got here and where we're going and overall there has been uh what we
01:35call a greenland block so we're going to look all the way up into greenland canada or greenland east of
01:40canada i should say uh and uh as we highlight this area of high pressure a ridge over greenland and over
01:47the far north atlantic that's been a pretty persistent feature on the map here in the past
01:52week or so and it's still with us now and that has allowed and caused an area of low pressure
01:58to kind of waver south and just be a pretty persistent feature on the map over eastern canada
02:04and there's some cold air associated with that if we begin to draw some some steering influences again
02:09if there weren't this this blocking pattern off the east coast of north america the flow wouldn't be
02:15like this it'd be more more like this west to east storms would be moving offshore that's not the
02:20case so the steering flow around these low pressure and high pressure systems has been very serpentine
02:26like this and if we think about where we are here in the midwest the ohio valley that means northwest
02:32flow so we've seen a series of clippers scoot on down the pike it's been one after the next again
02:38these clippers riding along the flow there uh one after the next year they're coming on down the pike
02:43and each of these has been followed by a reinvigorated flow from the northwest at the
02:48surface that leads to more lake effect snow we've had over two feet of snow early this week just in
02:53syracuse alone and now where are we going as you notice that big ridge over uh over parts of greenland
03:01it gets a little disrupted it's still kind of there in the sunday we're still dealing with this
03:06blocking pattern where low pressures just stuck over eastern canada but over time into next week
03:13we're going to begin to see some changes here and eventually the positioning of that high pressure
03:19system it's kind of lost it moves away from its position in greenland and we begin to see a flatter
03:25flow breakout so you can see as we begin if we look at the amplified pattern for the north for north
03:31america here and for the u.s uh again trough off the west coast big trough in the east big ridge over
03:37the northern plains and the rockies that's going to flatten out let's go all the way up ahead to
03:42maybe wednesday of next week look at this this is zonal flow there's a trough in the west but it
03:47really flattens out and the northern branch of the jet stream it's flatter that's going to drive
03:52some pacific air across more of the country when the flow flattens out we really don't hold on to the
03:57arctic air as much it withdraw withdraw withdrawals and retreats north to canada so we're going to
04:02have a few more disturbances these bright colors here if we look at the 500 millibar map this is
04:08about 20 000 feet up into the atmosphere these bright colors this is a measure of vorticity or spin in the
04:13atmosphere and again it's a little bit of inside baseball but if you have those bright colors moving
04:18in your direction you're going to be generally in an area where there's going to be more lift more
04:22cloud production and more snow and you'll notice that there are a couple of disturbances out there
04:26uh there's one in the southern branch of the jet stream but it stays pretty far removed from that
04:31in the northern branch of the jet stream so there's not going to be much interaction between the two
04:35uh and then things kind of flatten out and then we get into that period of west to east flow across
04:40the plains in the eastern u.s not as many big dips in the jet stream except for what's going on
04:45in california so that's where we want to draw our attention here uh to the next storm system and uh kind
04:50of looking at uh the uh the graphic for not the current storm not the one that's occurring this new
04:56year's day we get a little bit of a break on friday but we really escalate again saturday sunday
05:01monday tuesday four days with heavy rain and mountain snow the snow levels will be coming down
05:06and we're forecasting another one to two inches of rain in southern california in la two to four inches
05:12in pismo beach and up into san francisco that does not include the rain that's falling now this is
05:17beginning friday evening through the weekend and the snow levels are going to come down so a little bit
05:22of snow this new year's day snow levels dropped to 7 000 feet thursday night so donner pass sees a
05:28little snow tonight a little break for friday and then feet of snow resume in the mountain passes this
05:33weekend into next week so i want to look at that with a little more clarity again in the east not a
05:39whole lot of high impact weather here aside from the cold occasional snow showers near the great lakes
05:44a couple of systems coming through but california that's where the action is persistent rain mountain
05:50snow out there and if we look at the precipitable water this is the the vertically integrated i don't
05:57want to use sciencey words but the moisture from the ocean surface or the ground all the way up to
06:03the top of the troposphere where the weather happens to live if you get all that moisture squeeze it out
06:08this is how much there would be and what you'll notice is an atmospheric river event uh this string of
06:15moisture the streamer of moisture coming in to california for uh most of the weekend and into
06:21next week as well snow levels the elevation at which you go from rain to snow if you're climbing
06:26into the mountains initially a pretty high around nine or ten thousand feet it's going to be dropping
06:31to about seven or eight thousand feet tonight but then into next week they drop even lower six or seven
06:36thousand feet that's going to put the mountain passes into the snow zone so i just wanted to close with a
06:41quick look some big numbers when you get into the greens on this color scale you're looking at more
06:45than four feet of snow in some parts of the sierra through next week and that is your forecast feed
Comments