Buckle Up Winter Will Be Back and Here to Stay

Good Morning. After this weekends warm up, all signals point to winter making a sharp return for late December through January. All the ingredients needed which include the temperature profiles of key areas of the oceans, an active sub tropical jet stream, and high pressure developing over the north pole to drive arctic air southward are in the process of developing. What this will result in is frequent injections of fresh arctic air over the eastern third of the country with warm moist air running into it from the subtropical jet stream. You can not ask for a much better set up if you are a winter lover. 

Here is what the atmosphere will look like the days following Christmas into the new year..

What looks like a bunch of different colors is a winter lovers dream over the east coast. Basically what you see above is blocking high pressure developing over Greenland and the North pole shown in red. This is a negative North Atlantic Oscillation and Negative Arctic Oscillation. This high pressure forces the semi-permanent polar vortex  (the polar vortex is the constant area of low pressure that sits and rotates over the north pole, it is the coldest air in the northern hemisphere) into eastern Canada and the eastern US. You can clearly see the polar vortex on the map above in the purple and greens. 

So think about what you see here. A massive area of cold air just sitting over our area, to the south and west of it you have a live feed of moisture running into this cold air which is the sub tropical jet. You can see the sub tropical jet below that has been constantly been present for weeks..

I cant think of a much more ideal set up for cold and storms than what you see above guys. In terms of storms, looks like we might have a shot at a post Christmas storm along with another shot around the New Year. I will have more on that potential sometime this weekend. But for now the point need to be made that Winter will be back and back to stay.