TODAY'S FUN LINKS: | | NSF NCAR Technologies Keep Travelers on the Move NCAR - 15 December 2025 NCAR scientists are applying increasingly advanced computer models and artificial intelligence techniques to forecast snow and ice at specific points on runways and highways. |
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| | Massachusetts Institute of Technology - 5 January 2026The study found that as these heat waves become more common at midlatitudes, the strength of the atmospheric inversions trapping the heat and humidity will determine how long they last. |
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| | Sky-High Smoke Harvard University - 10 December 2025 Researchers sampled wildfire smoke in the upper troposphere and found large particles that had a measurable cooling effect, with potential implications for future climate predictions. |
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WEATHER HAZARDS (During The Next 24 Hours)
SEVERE WEATHER OUTLOOK
(potential for tornadoes, damaging winds, and large hail within the next 24 hours)
STRONG WINDS
(Pressure Gradient Derived; Orographic Enhancement)
ON Peninsula....PA....WV....N VA....DC....MD....DE....PA....NJ....NY....S QC....NB....ME....NS....PEI
STRONG WINDS
(Pressure Gradient Derived; Orographic Enhancement)
BC Coastline....WA Olympic Peninsula
HEAVY RAINFALL OUTLOOK
(potential for an inch or more total rainfall within the next 24 hours)
Scattered Locations in
BC Coastline....WA Olympic Peninsula
(QPF 1 - 3")
WINTER WEATHER POTENTIAL
(potential for Moderate Icing, Snow 2 - 4" or more, and/or temperatures below 10 deg F)
Scattered Locations In
BC, WA Coastal Ranges
(Snow; Above 4000 Feet; Blizzard; 4 - 24")
Isolated Locations In
Lower MI....N IN....N OH....ON....W, C PA....W, N NY....S QC
(Snow; In Squalls; 4 - 12; Near-Blizzard)
Scattered Locations In
MI....IN....OH....ON....WV....VA....DC....MD.....DE....PA....NY....QC....VT....NH....MA....RI....CT
(Intense Cold, Wind Chill)
Lower MI....N IN....N OH....ON....W, C PA....W, N NY....S QC
Lower MI....N IN....N OH....ON....W, C PA....W, NY....S QC
GLOBAL WEATHER SUMMARY
(a review of important weather features around the world)
METEOSAT IODC
ECMWF; METEOBLUE; EUMETSAT
The cold aims at Southwestern Asia.
There is an intense 500MB shortwave moving out of the Balkan Peninsula into the Black Sea and Anatolia. With a ridge building across western Russia, the disturbance will be forced southeast through Mesopotamia and Persia. Unlike previous systems, this impulse will likely close off and form a cAk vortex centered near or around Tehran. This represents an ideal scenario for record low temperatures, a freeze line into the UAE and even northern Saudi Arabia. Using the ECMWF model as a template, this cold motherlode will only have moved into eastern Iran by January 20. The greatest risk for important synoptic snowfall (along with Caspian-derived squalls as far north as Turkmenistan) should be January 15-17, replete with gusty winds and very heavy snowpack in the Zagros and Alborz Ranges.
HIMAWARI 8
METEOBLUE; Kochi University
The much discussed Madden-Julian Oscillation plumes are suppressed below the Equator, straddling Phases 3 through 7, with a marginal connection to the polar westerlies off of the coastline of East Asia. The linkage to the subtropical jet stream has waned, for now at least, which would remove the MJO as an important contributor to the weather in the lower 48 states. Potential for important tropical cyclones will be high in the southern Indian and Pacific Oceans, with northern Australia at risk for high impacts from both the seasonal The Wet diurnal thunderstorms as well as cyclone strikes. Cold air will dominate the northern half of Eurasia with cAk vortices. But the Australian subcontinent and New Zealand should mostly trend hotter.
GOES WEST
NOAA/NESDIS
With a shift northward of the polar jet stream, there should be a tendency for ridge building across western North America. But there is still a vigorous southern branch that looks to undercut the ridging, which now is clearing out parts of the Desert and Intermountain Regions. If the amplification process is as strong as some of the numerical models suggest, chances for important drainage of cold air east of the Rocky Mountains will commence in about five days or so. This is why the medium range forecasts have turned into a warm West vs. cold East split, with potential for a significant winter storm affecting the Midwest, Great Lakes, and the Northeast. Another concern is that the subtropical windstream (west of Baja California) will phase with the formative system in the High Plains, which might allow for frozen precipitation in heavier amounts to form further south.
GOES EAST
NOAA/NESDIS
The storm and upper level low across the Great Lakes is far stronger than was earlier forecast by the numerical models, and its attendant cold front reaches far south into Oaxaca State in southern Mexico. The cold pool will create winter weather issues for chill, high winds, and now squalls as far as Quebec and Appalachia on Sunday. The warming behind this feature over the Great Plains and Texas will be briefer and not as impressive, but could bring the January Thaw back through Texas and Dixie for a time in the new week. See also the vague outline of a heat ridge across the Greater Antilles.
A huge tropical wave complex covers the northwestern quarter of South America, and should continue to head westward into the Pacific Ocean. There is a chance that the convective grouping could attach to the southern branch, enhancing a storm entering the south central states next weekend. Also note the renewed heavy thunderstorms and frontal structure covering southern Brazil into northern Argentina, which may reoccur in that vicinity later in the new week.
METEOSAT SEVIRI
ECMWF; METEOBLUE; EUMETSAT
There is something of a break in the action, so to speak, in western Europe between an oncoming full-latitude trough and cold front, which in the next 72 hours should enable some moderation in temperature from the British Isles southward to Morocco. But as this system moves through, the thermal alignment will go back to cold West vs. mild East, since the current chills in eastern Europe will move bodily into an arc from the Ural Range into the Middle East and Persia. Some bitterly cold temperatures are forecast across the subcontinent in the 6-10 day range, with perhaps some warming in the last week of January.
Africa can be divided to a mild North vs. humid South configuration, with the suppressed ITCZ and a weak frontal structure triggering widespread thunderstorms after hot and muggy days from the Congo Basin into South Africa.
