Monday Pattern Update: Watching Early Next Week for Snow

Good morning. Today I want to discuss the chance for more wintery weather over our region early next week. So far this winter has not really delivered minus one decent storm in mid December and the anticipation has been that the pattern would be changing starting now. I will say things are going to step down to be colder this week and that is the precursor to what can be a few rounds of winter weather next week. If next week comes and goes with no winter weather you will see my change my tune on this winter. Quite simply, most pattern signals should support snow so if they do not it is not meant to be.

Lets take a look...

By mid week we will have a front associated with a low pressure system to our NW pass through the area. This will cause colder conditions to filter in to the region Wednesday and Thursday with some mountain snows over NY and VT. Ski areas could actually see several inches by the weekend...

That sets the stage for a pretty tame weekend weather wise. Temps will moderate to around average ahead of what could be an approaching winter storm system(s) early next week...

For Monday and Tuesday:

GFS projection:

Euro projection..

As you can see we have our normal differences between the European and GFS models. The European is amplifying the energy more causing a stronger storm with more cold air to the north. The GFS is a little flatter causing a weaker storm. Both show impacts however.

So whats to make of this?. One thing I really like to see this this time around is a lot of high pressure to our north over Canada....

You can see above how our storm is over the Tennessee valley but we got storm high pressure over Canada. This pressure pattern is a source of true cold air to work its way into the storm. When I see this it tells me the storm should set up a sharp boundary between cold and warm air. This would mean an enhanced area of snow where ever this boundary decides to set up...

If its more north its rain if its more south its snow. 

Now to make things more complicated, if the energy for the storm is too spread out then we just have a weak wave of snow showers like the Canadian is showing...

However, even if that was the case and early next week ends up being weak and flat, there is another disturbance right behind it for middle to end of the week...

So we can either end up going 2-2, 1-2, or 0-2 by the end of next week. The key here guys is that there is potential and that's all we can ask for if you want cold and snow. The upper level pattern below looks very supportive and like I said in the beginning of this post if nothing ends up happening next week it is just not meant to be...

Stay tuned will be updating on this daily.