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just in time for the busiest week of travel, Mother Nature is about to change things up. I have been watching several factors over the past few weeks that have been hinting at the possibility that the time frame between Thanksgiving and Christmas could be the most active winter weather time period for the eastern half of the U.S. for the entire winter.

As is customary for me, I try to provide an initial winter weather outlook around the first of September, just as we begin to think Fall. Why? It comes from my work experience in the private weather industry where critical planning for the upcoming winter takes place during September and October and that is when the winter outlook is so important. This includes the utility industry with regards to their planning on the amount of natural gas and heating oil will be required to heat our homes to local municipalities, state departments of transportation and the local snow plow operator...

Last year at this time when I was putting together the fall and preliminary winter outlooks I was seeing an El Nino amidst a cold PDO (Pacific Decadal Oscillation) facing me. That helped to lead to a very chilly winter for much of the eastern U.S. and especially the Southeast. This year the pendulum is swinging in the opposite direction and that means a La Nina amidst a cold PDO. So can we expect opposite conditions for this fall/winter?

A vigorous upper level storm system over northwest Oklahoma/south-central Kansas will continue to organize today. Below it, sits a surface low and extending from the low is a cold front that extends through extreme western Oklahoma southward through western Texas as of 9 AM, Saturday. Ahead of the front, conditions were still rather stable and surface moisture was limited with dewpoints in the low 40s across eastern Oklahoma into western Arkansas and only in the low to mid 50s across east Texas and much of Louisiana. The flow today will continue to be southerly so some advection of moister air...

It has been a busy week here with one of the twins being sick and then them having Spring break. That has equaled time not available to neither look at the weather nor provide blog posts but things are much quieter today. For the first time in a week, as I am typing this post I am seeing a bright, yellow ball in the sky. I believe it is the elusive sun. A slow progressing trough has kept much of the southeastern U.S. shrouded in low cloud cover which in turn has kept temperatures 5 to 10 degrees below normal....

As a nearly stationary upper system spins over the Missouri Valley, additional individuals pieces of energy continue to rotate around it, One spun threw the lower Mississippi Valley Wednesday evening and delivered the season’s first widespread severe weather event with a total of 168 severe weather reports. Of those, 5 were of tornadoes with four being reported in Arkansas and one in Louisiana. The remainder was of large hail and damaging winds. Of the tornadoes that occurred, it appears the strongest may have occurred across three counties in central Arkansas:

A nearly stationary weather pattern is going to equal a busy, unsettled weather week for most of us east of the Rockies. First of several impulses is spinning around a cut-off upper rotation over the Plains. It his bringing a band of rain/showers from the Mississippi River eastward and I-70 northward, today. The next piece of energy will rotate eastward out of the 4-corners region on Wednesday and by late Wednesday evening will be making its way into southeast Kansas. This will set up for the potential of some strong and even severe thunderstorms Wednesday late afternoon through early Thursday...

For those of you along and east of the Rockies and south, still a nice weekend is expected. The only exception will be in the northern Plains and Upper Midwest where a system will be passing through delivering a chance for some chilly rains. The rest of us, especially those of us along and east of the Mississippi River, will see quite a bit of sunshine. In addition, we will see some nice warming temperatures. By Sunday afternoon, the 60 degree temperatures will reach as far north as

System moving out of the Gulf of Mexico and through the Southeast today has already delivered a wide swath of wet snow accumulation through Alabama and into northern Georgia. Some of the higher terrain of northeast Alabama has seen 3” to 6” of accumulation. The highest totals received so far: Lookout Mtn-Chattanooga, TN (7”), Pisgah, AL (6”), Coker Creek, TN (6”), Collinsville, AL (5”), Mentone, AL (4”), Hayesville, NC (4”), Whitewell, TN (4”), SE Huntsville, AL (3”), Arab, AL (3”), Albertville, AL (3”) and Grant, AL (3”). This system will continue to track NNE along the Atlantic coast over the...

I have provided the Spring and Severe Weather Outlook in today's blog post. Also, I would like to thank those of you who have read my blog this year and commented. I realize some of you are having trouble reading the text due to the graphic background. I will be working to fix this issue and hope to make it easier on everyone's eyes soon. I did not realize the issue because it is not evident when I few it through firefox at the settings I have my browser set at but I took a look and saw the issue...

I give my thoughts on the recent UAH shooting then provide a look at the snow forecast for the next few days. Yep, more snow for many who have already seen a large amount. Snow will even make it back into the South.

Models this morning continue the trend of ticking northward and every little tick northward shifts the potential heavy snow and accumulating snow a tad further north. However, still appears that significant widespread moderate to heavy snowfall is expected in areas not accustomed to it. The snow is already ongoing in the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex and I admit that as of Wednesday, I anticipated the heavy snow setting up just to its south. That isn’t my thought, now. Looks like the Metroplex will see 4” to 8” of snow today into tonight. This heavy snow band will continue to shift eastward...

Models continue to show the southern track of the forecast low from the southern tip of Texas, across the central Gulf of Mexico and into Florida. The upper air data still only captured about half of the actual upper system this morning so it has not been entirely sampled yet but close. There is some what of a northern tick in this model run versus those of yesterday and I think that will be the case to some extent for the next couple of runs but in general I still think the I-20 corridor is the area under the gun...

An impressive winter storm is aiming for New York City/Long Island/Boston. DC will see another snowy blast, too, but the main focus is around New York City and along Long Island where 1 to 2 feet of snow is possible with very strong winds, too. DC likely to remain in the 6” to 10” band. My focus now is looking back to the California Coast where the next storm system in the parade exists, today. This

We had a surprise snow in the Tennessee Valley this morning. You may ask, “How is that possible to be surprised?” Well, meteorology is still not a perfect science and things don’t always go as expected or forecast. I can honestly say, there is nothing that would have forecast 1”-5” of snow across about a 30-40 mile wide swath of northern Alabama in a period of just 2 to 3 hours. When I last worked, Saturday, one model showed the possibility of some very light precipitation starting by early afternoon and I thought to myself, “if that is right maybe...

Another complex situation setting up with more snow for some of you in the Mid-South to the Mid-Atlantic and northward tonight through Tuesday. It will be a one-two punch with a southern stream wave and an Arctic front and wave. The two will be coming together to spread abundant snow cover to much of the US along and north of I-40, again. Those of you in DC, Philly and throughout Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Jersey are you ready for more snow! I hope so because you are going to have snow on snow and it isn’t just a few additional...

Get ready for a busy couple of weeks as a full return of winter is on its WAAY. If you remember in the Winter Outlook that was presented in October, I mentioned a cold winter was expected for much of the Eastern U.S. and that February would likely be the coldest. We had a period of significant chill in January with a period of a thaw but now the next two weeks is going to give early January’s cold a run for its money. Cold will again make its way all the way out of the Arctic and into the...

In my last post I commented on how the possibility existed for a near repeat performance for portions of the Southeast with more wintry precipitation late this week into the start of the weekend. Well, I am not as convinced anymore and it appears a double-barreled low will set up with one heading up from the Gulf Coast into the Ohio Valley while another will spin up off the northeastern Florida coast and head northward.

Attention will then turn to the Southwestern U.S. where another storm system will move ashore associated with the subtropical jetstream. This system will spread more rains and mountain snows to the western U.S. from Canada into the desert Southwest on Tuesday and Wednesday. This upper level energy will begin to aid in the development of a surface storm system northeastern “Old” Mexico by Thursday morning. In its advance, a southerly flow will set up and produce a solid fetch of Gulf moisture that will encompass much of the Gulf coast from Texas to Florida by Thursday morning.

Had a chance to quickly look at a couple new models lat this evening and the trend appears to be heading a bit further south with the main system and a bit colder , too. So what does this all mean? Well, during the past day or so the trend had been moving a bit further north with the low moving out of Louisiana to near the I-20 corridor in Alabama and then eastward into Georgia. That meant the likelihood that it would try to remain mainly rain from northern Mississippi into northern Alabama and Georgia during the heaviest precipitation....