Changes coming, but we still have time

The winter solstice is on December 21st at 9:03am, and we've already released our winter forecast, which was met with some interesting feedback. Some of you hate the cold and snow, while others don't mind it around Christmas time, but then after the holiday, you want sunshine and 60s/70s. 

Lately, it seems like all of the snow is hanging around the Great Lakes, upper Midwest, and northern Plains. Just take a look at how much snow has already fallen for those locations:

This is classic La Nina in wintertime - basically cold and wet across the northern tier of the US, but the southern Plains is dry and warm. It won't be this way all winter long, but as evidenced lately, there will be some very lengthy periods that are pretty quiet for Kansas. 

What's next:

Still looks rather warm overall through Christmas as the main jet stream winds come straight in from the west or northwest. As we've seen lately, Kansas is the battleground for the warm and cold, but what seems to be winning on most days is the milder air.

Keep an eye on the period around New Years and right after because we should start seeing much colder air taking over across the Plains states and the northern tier of the US. That's when we see the Arctic Oscillation going "negative", which usually allows for much colder air to break off from the Canadian provinces and settle farther south. However, it also looks like the high pressure (ridge) over the western US starts to weaken, allowing for some very wet/snowy setups over the western 1/3 of the nation.

I know some of the images we post can be a little "in the weeds" or confusing, but overall, our message for winter hasn't changed. Still looks like we have a fair amount of mild before any prolonged period of cold. And moisture will return too, but it may not happen on a larger scale until we approach the new year and get started with 2026.