I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas with friends and family! The weather should cooperate for the commute back home across much of Virginia this weekend. We’ll be mostly cloudy today with some drizzle and fog here and there, but any measurable rain holds off until early next week. We could see a little bit more sun on Sunday, with temperatures getting back into the low 70s. Then more systems arrive Monday and bring back off-and-on rain chances that stick with us through Thursday, with temps cooler, in the upper 50s and low 60s.
Looking further down the road into the start of the New Year, there are strong indications that winter will finally set in, with models projecting high temperatures some 30 degrees colder than what we’ve just seen.
All forecast models are showing a classic split-flow jet stream setting up to kick of 2016, with a tall ridge of high pressure over the western U.S. and a trough in the East. The ridge forces the northern branch of the jet stream up through far northern Canada, then back south again towards the Mid-Atlantic and New England. At the same time, the southern jet is forced south, through northern Mexico and Texas, then picks up moisture from the Gulf before it turns north through or near the Carolinas. At the very least, this means it’ll finally feel like winter around here. Whether any storm systems hook up with the cold air at the same time remains to be seen, so it’s impossible to start talking winter storms at this point. But the impending pattern change is a welcome sign for those who like their winters to feel like winter.
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