Messy Morning Drive Ahead...

Good Evening!

I hope that each of you had a Merry Christmas, and my wish for you in 2016 is simple:  Health, Happiness, and Prosperity!

Been awhile since I have posted here, my friend Dave Page asked me on Twitter what I was thinking for the beginning of the coming week, the finale for 2015!  I told him I’d look at it and put the details on the blog.  So here we go.

LOWBALLING IT:  We see two big players on the field over the lower 48.  Looking at it with the bird’s eye view  at 500 millibars, or about 18,000 feet up, a strong upper low parked a bit southeast of Las Cruces, New Mexico, and the associated trough that goes pretty much the length on the US from north to south.  Then the 591 ridging that kept a White Christmas away from the eastern half of the US, and shattered records the last few days has finally been ushered offshore.  At the surface, a 998 millibar low is sitting down near Laredo, TX with a cold 1043 Arctic high sitting on the Colorado/Wyoming border.   That high, has Denver and the high country of Colorado in the single digits.  The low in Texas has everything unsettled on both sides of it, with a snowstorm on the cold side for places such as Amarillo, TX and Dodge City, KS.  On the warm side of the system, more flooding issues with heavy rains, and an “enhanced” risk for severe storm activity today, stretching from Houston, TX to Arkadelphia, AR.  Now that the players have been identified, let’s talk about…

COLD AND SLIPPERY:  While us Michiganders have enjoyed unseasonably warm temperatures, albeit wet; the departure of the upper ridge sets the stage for a change.  Gulf moisture continues to ride into the Midwest and Great Lakes on the low-level jet.  Shower activity should become more broken by the end of the day today, as a weak surface low over eastern New York heads out to sea, but I still anticipate more clouds than sun.  The next event comes as that surface low down in Texas turns left at Houston, tracking northeast.  By tomorrow at lunchtime, I’m expecting that storm system to have intensified, and it should be parked near the Arkansas/Missouri line.  We’re in the cold sector, on the north side, so I’m expecting rain to become freezing rain, then a wintry mix.

WINTER WEATHER MISCHIEF:  We note a smorgasbord of Winter weather alerts in the area.  A Freezing Rain Advisory is in effect for Branch and Hillsdale counties through 7 PM tomorrow, with a Wind Advisory for those same counties until 10 PM tomorrow night.  Calhoun and Jackson counties are under a Winter Weather Advisory until 4 AM Tuesday morning.  Clinton, Eaton and Ingham counties are under a Winter Storm Warning until 6 AM Tuesday Morning, and Livingston and Shiawassee counties are under a Winter Storm Watch until 3 AM Tuesday morning.  That’s a lot of activity!  The kicker with all of this is that we don’t anticipate any snow with this storm.  All of this mayhem will be caused by ICE.  Forecast data keeps us in the 28-32 range, just close enough to freezing to keep things interesting.  Give yourself extra travel time for the next 36-48 hours, and get your battery powered things you need charged up, or set up with fresh batteries.  Conditions will be ripe for power outages.  The good news is that by Tuesday evening, we’ll be back above the freezing mark and change our precipitation back to rain, the rest is brief; a weak disturbance comes through that will drop a bit of snow on the Wednesday into the afternoon hours.

LOOKING DOWN THE LINE:  Conditions will remain seasonable, not a whole lot going on after that weak disturbance comes through.  I’ll have more later, and I hope that you have great night.  We’ll keep you posted as the storm draws near.