WEATHERAmerica Newsletter. Saturday, December 27, 2025; SHORT RANGE And MEDIUM RANGE OUTLOOKS

[Larry Cosgrove]

SHORT RANGE OUTLOOK

(Through The Next 72 Hours)

 

Mid-Continent Warm Bubble Suppressed By Vortex, Cold Intrusion From Great Plains To The East Coast

METEOBLUE

PivotalWeather.Com (3)

UQAM Meteocentre (3) 

ECMWF

College Of DuPage Weather Laboratory (3)

Just when people living in the Northeast emerge from an ice and snow event, here comes yet another ice and snow event, followed by Arctic air. Moderation will prove short-lived, with a strong cold front and storm moving through the Great Lakes and Midwest up into the St. Lawrence Valley and New England. Most of the operational schemes and experimental guidance create a miserable experience with high winds, severe thunderstorms (warm sector, Ohio Valley) followed by a switch to piercing cold that might cause a freeze in parts of Ontario, Quebec and the interior Northeast. The circulation and cold pool aloft will cartwheel into the Ungava Peninsula and form a cAk vortex that may last up to a week. Very warm air in the south central states may reach the Dixie states, but likely not budge against some continuing snow threats above 40 N Latitude from the Corn Belt into parts of the Mid-Atlantic. The West looks mainly warm and dry, although a low pressure area off of the California coastline could alter the pattern across the Intermountain Region by late in the new week.

 

MEDIUM RANGE OUTLOOK

(Four To Ten Days From Now)

Marginal Warm-Up Possible Before New Storm And Arctic Air Mass Arrives East Of The Rocky Mountains

METEOBLUE

TrueWx.Com (4)

WeatherBELL (4)

College Of DuPage Weather Laboratory (3)

Blocking over Baffin Island. A cAk vortex that gets stuck in Quebec and accrues an Arctic shortwave into Ontario. A retrogressive ridge complex from Texas/Oklahoma toward British Columbia and the Intermountain Region. And a Pacific Basin dual-stream storm complex that may dig into Mexico and the southern USA.

This does not sound like an epic warm-up, although the western and southern states may reach into the above normal category until or a little after January 6. While it is true that the various numerical models have struggled greatly with the pattern (warm, cold, then warm or mixed every 24 hours), climatology using the energetic storm sequence and southern branch in a La Nina episode favors a rather crazed, but ultimately colder turn that may break for a while by the middle of next month. Followed by a hideous temperature and storm collapse in the last ten days of January. That deep snowpack in Canada will encroach on the Interstate 80 corridor after New Year's Day if the ECMWF version of events is true and we see a large winter cyclone move into New England. The details are a bit sketchy, but some of the winter of 2025-2026 looks to be very notable.