A quiet week before cold air reloads

The pattern this week looks fairly benign, which should equate to some nice weather by January standards. It's not going to be the record warmth that December left us with, but there should be some fairly mild days coming up and maybe we'll get some 60s before it's over. 

Setup this week:

It's likely that we'll have a few days with high pressure setting up near the central Rockies. Jet stream winds return north, and this should mean uneventful weather for the central US. The really cold weather quickly retreats north and east when the pattern sets up like this. This isn't something that will last for very long as you'll see in a moment.

Temperatures Tuesday:

Temperatures Wednesday:

Temperatures Thursday:

Unfortunately, earlier talk of rain for our immediate area is out (surprise, surprise). The system never looked all that strong, and now models are completely washing out the system. This should be a dry week coming up. 

Late week front: Friday-Friday night, a cold front will come through with stronger north winds returning. Temperatures will drop, but this does not appear to be Arctic air arriving. It looks like highs in the 35-40° range for this area, which is not as extreme as recent fronts.

There will be a close encounter with some snow, but given the track of the storm (coming from the northwest), I wouldn't expect this to be anything more than a "close call" or a light snow chance into Friday night. We'll post more as it gets closer, but likely a dud for Kansas. 

More potential Arctic air coming - heads up for the second half of January. Trends continue to look colder as we move into January week 3 and 4. Northern and central Plains, upper Midwest, and points to the east will likely experience a reloading of bitter cold. A big winter storm seems unlikely given that whatever comes this way will likely approach from the west/northwest.