Winter 2025-26 Medium/Long Range Discussion

[SchaumburgStormer]

Not hating the "snowpack in place, frequent refreshers" pattern we are in. Feeling pretty good for a white christmas. 

[A-L-E-K]

wouldn't be surprised to see 20:1+ in any good fgen banding with the saturday event

[Cary67]

Maybe a warm up towards the holidays?

[A-L-E-K]

mixed bag with 12z guidance on the potential saturday event, icon and ggem p hot, gfs more of sliding duster

 

[migratingwx]

12z GFS still favoring a southern track, with the heaviest snows staying south of Chicago. 

[migratingwx]

Euro has shifted north from earlier runs for the Friday and Saturday systems.

12z vs 6z bottom 2 maps below

 

[cyclone77]

Lock it in.

[WestMichigan]

The end of the Euro and GFS couldn't be much more different.  The Euro has Western Ohio is in the upper 20's on 12/24 and the GFS is saying low 60's.  Definitely la la land for both, but a large difference nonetheless.

[A-L-E-K]

[TheClimateChanger]

12 minutes ago, WestMichigan said:

The end of the Euro and GFS couldn't be much more different.  The Euro has Western Ohio is in the upper 20's on 12/24 and the GFS is saying low 60's.  Definitely la la land for both, but a large difference nonetheless.

I wouldn't completely rule it out at this point.

 

[A-L-E-K]

sure why not^

[WestMichigan]

1 minute ago, TheClimateChanger said:

I wouldn't completely rule it out at this point.

 

One of them is going to be wrong.  Maybe both are, but both definitely can't be correct.

[TheClimateChanger]

2 minutes ago, A-L-E-K said:

sure why not^

Severe weather outbreak?

[sbnwx85]

Snowpack will take a hit, but we need to eventually get out of the northwest flow pattern. Maybe it will set up a big dog for the New Year. 

[Baum]

24 minutes ago, sbnwx85 said:

Snowpack will take a hit, but we need to eventually get out of the northwest flow pattern. Maybe it will set up a big dog for the New Year. 

I’ll stay here.

[hlcater]

You'd think that the amount of snow we have going into mid december would guarantee a white christmas, but the pattern going into the holidays isnt exactly favorable for snowpack retention. Going 40/60 odds, respectively.

[Baum]

Not a big white Christmas guy if I’ve already put 20” on the ground by then.

[Radtechwxman]

Going to be another winter with I80 north crew constantly cashing in while us south barely miss out. Noticing all these nw systems bullseye me then shift north as we get closer. Bring back the south shift. 

[cyclone77]

3 hours ago, Baum said:

I’ll stay here.

I'm loving this pattern.  Been years it seems since we've seen clippers parading like this.  Also, the Pac hybrids are nice as well if we can get more of them.  Seems like there's a better chance for a widespread score compared to a big cutter with widespread p-type/dry slot concerns.  

[ChiTownSnow]

Was hoping to go the whole month of Dec with snow cover.  

[Frog Town]

Wouldn't mind a little warm up if it means recentering the mean trough west of here so we can get some big dogs.  Mid December 2013 warmed up prior to the epic period that followed.   This pattern is cool in like January or February to maintain..

[migratingwx]

 

A southward shift on the 18z Euro vs 12z below. 

 

 

[Radtechwxman]

Probably going to see a lot of north and south wobbles. I dont like where I sit currently. Cutoff will be sharp and frontogenic bands always end up narrower than expected with brutal cutoff on either side. 

[ChiTownSnow]

53 minutes ago, Radtechwxman said:

Probably going to see a lot of north and south wobbles. I dont like where I sit currently. Cutoff will be sharp and frontogenic bands always end up narrower than expected with brutal cutoff on either side. 

Yeah based on the last several.. any small changes upstream has larger impacts downstream 

[RCNYILWX]

Pretty much inevitable there would be some form of pattern relaxation. The saving grace from probably not getting into a lengthy torch is the WPO is forecast to remain strongly negative, which keeps cold air discharge going into our source region. The EPO may head back toward neutral heading into Christmas week and then perhaps back to negative thereafter.

I think with the likelihood of new snow on top of the melted and consolidated snowpack through this weekend and then the deep freeze for a couple days, if we can avoid a high dew point rain event, snowpack retention should be decent before a true pattern reload commences. Also with the -WPO that means CAA behind fronts should be fairly robust.

Milder more zonal patterns often end up cloudy which typically isn't effective at melting much snow this time of year, again unless you get a couple days of high dew points. Even at over two weeks out, I'd lean towards Chicago having its first official white Christmas in a while.

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