12z Euro has some snow breaking out across KS/MO/OK/NW 1/2 of AR on Christmas Eve. The upper air pattern has changed pretty drastically from the 12z run yesterday.
Sheesh, 12z GFS... Not all of this is 'snow', a lot of freezing rain/sleet combo in here but you can see the areas of expected frozen precip over the next 10 days.
It will be interesting to see if the models get even colder the closer we get to the event. I seem to recall them not being cold enough with the cold air back in the big EPO years a few years ago.
We can get cold with -EPO or -AO. The last few winters have had a predominantly +AO which doesn't bode well for cold here. (I think 2012-2013 was last fullish -AO winter) So the other way is the -EPO which delivers the cold air. I think a neutral PNA was best for wintry weather though.
Man, that -EPO ridge just won't go away. This is similar to about 4-5 years ago when we had those back to back years where the -EPO ridge persisted and we got tons of cold and snow was above average.
Yeah, there's still a lot of run to run differences showing up from model run to model run on each individual model as can be expected with a pattern change.
12z GFS still has the Christmas week storm(s). Strong -EPO ridge is going to spill cold air south.
The interesting thing is the persistent troughing in the west and the SE ridge. This is going to set up a fairly crazy looking pattern where pieces of energy are going to eject out of the trough and override the cold air at the surface, this leads to several rounds of frozen precip and probably a couple of ice storms near our area.
Yeah, the 18z GFS has an overrunning situation and then after 384, looks to be attempting a phase. Fascinating. Unfortunately, it's about 9-10 days until the possible system hits land over WA/OR.
It's going to warm up prior to that as the pattern shifts.
By the end of the run the colder air looks poised to drop back south down the Plains possibly. Not sure how far south it will get though.
The 06z GEFS def shows it dropping farther south.