Nikhil Trivedi:
After a quiet December, we've entered a very active period of weather which won't be shutting down anytime soon. What will change, however, is who is favored to see snow.
This pattern will force a major storm cutting through the Great Lakes (Jan 10), bringing some much needed snow to the Midwest. This storm should push deep into Canada and greatly amplify our -NAO. Our Pacific ridge will build poleward in tandem with this.
We start with our retracted jet inducing a Pacific ridge and Western US trough.
This frankly ridiculous high-latitude blocking regime should squeeze our polar vortex into Southern Canada, which will likely force an arctic outbreak in the US in 7-10 days. The associated arctic high should force a mountain torque event which intensifies the jet.
This should allow our trough to surge east in 10-14 days, opening the door for our next Eastern US snow opportunity. Given the suppressive nature of the Arctic-influenced pattern, it could honestly be one that favors the Southeast for snow. We'll see.