January outlook - Arctic air watch

 An early Happy New Year to you and thanks for spending a few minutes here catching up. You may not like what we have to showcase going into January, but when we issued the winter forecast, we said the coldest of the winter would be centered on January. And it does appear that the first big batch of Arctic air arrives very soon. I don't think it's record cold, but it could be around for a week or so, and my suspicion is the month (as a whole - averaged out) will be near or slightly below average on temperatures. 

The next winter storm in the making?

Around January 9-12th, a rather large system should develop into the desert Southwest once again (we've seen a bunch of them this winter already). This should link up with higher pressures up over the north pole, which will allow the bitter cold to barge south into the US. See the map below and notice the "H" up over Greenland, and also look at the deep blue/green back in Utah and Nevada. That's what we believe will be the next winter storm to come through the region.

Obviously, the finer details are murky at best this far out, but I'd be ready for some really cold weather to settle in as we approach mid-January. 

Another factor that deserves mention too is the Arctic Oscillation, which is quite negative over the next 30 days and beyond. When that happens, it does increase the potential of much colder stretches of weather to arrive (it's not always a guarantee), but usually is a telegraph for what's down the road. In this setup, higher pressure up over the pole allows the colder air to dislodge and head south. The line that we pay most attention to in the image below is the solid black line. All the way to the end of January, it's negative, so our chances of having a warm month ahead are very slim.

Here's a 32-day snow prediction off one of the computer models - what's a bit interesting is just how much of the country could experience some snow in the upcoming month. The more we put down, the better the chances will be for the cold air to hang around longer. 

If you're interested in January "norms", here they are. It's not necessarily the snowiest month of the year, but it is the month with the lowest average temperatures (you probably aren't surprised by that). The averages will start to go up mid-late month. We are also gaining daylight now that we have passed the solstice.