Christmas weather will be found towards the end of this post, but first lets get to the weather over the next couple of days – which doesn’t look promising for a white Christmas.High pressure centered over the East Coast this morning will continue to gradually slip off to the east and allow for those clouds to continue to work their way into the region. Another high pressure in northern Ontario is helping to keep a stationary front situated from Wisconsin down to through the central Plains and into New Mexico this morning. This stationary front is where the low pressure centre will develop tomorrow. Waves of low pressure will ride along the stationary front today, but all those will stay out of the region right now and we’ll just mainly see the clouds from it.
Upper level trough at 500-mbs continues to move through southern California this morning and by tonight it will be digging into the southern Rockies. Running around the trough will be a wave of low pressure which will surface out of the southern Rockies tomorrow morning and kick up a surface low pressure in the Oklahoma panhandle area. This low pressure will deepen rather quickly and then head off towards the region with its trailing cold front and preceeding warm front.
Focusing with the SREF at this time, looks like the rainy weather will start to approach the western half of the region as early as late tonight. Of the rain showers that do develop late tonight, it appears that most of them will stay localized to the Fort Wayne area until sunrise tomorrow. As that warm front moves through the region, the rain showers around it will find their way into the Toledo and Detroit area by tomorrow morning as well. The steadier rain showers will not really arrive until 10.00 a.m. tomorrow morning for the western half of the region. How heavy will these rain showers be? I haven’t really put a number on them yet, looks like they will be moderate, however I will do further forecsating on that this morning as well.
By tomorrow evening the low pressure centre will be over Iowa, and by this time the first round of rain showers will have passed through the region. There will be a break in the rain showers tomorrow evening in the western half of the region, but how long that break will be is a little questionable at this time – so for now I have kept widely scattered rain showers in the forecast for tomorrow evening to play it safe. Around this time as well, the rain showers will have been making their way into the eastern half of the region where warm advection will have already started.
Highs tomorrow are going to be a little tough, but generally we should all stay below 50° for a high tomorrow. Thursday will be a little tougher, let me explain why.
Now tomorrow night those rain showers will have redeveloped in the region, mainly after midnight for just about all of us. The cold front will still be out to the west, so I kept overnight lows tomorrow night rather mild compared to seasonal average in response to continuing warm advection.
Thursday, those rain showers are going to be giving us one last push as the cold front enters the region. I am expecting that by around noon Thursday the cold front will just start to pass through the western half of the region. This cold front will possibly create the high temperatures in the morning or early afternoon for the western half of the region, but once that front passes through a temperature drop of about 10°, the front wont make it to the eastern half of the region until Thursday night.
With the passage of the cold front, we can expect to see conditions in the western half of the region improve and become a bit chillier. Despite a few lingering rain showers in the afternoon on Thursday, by Thursday evening the western half of the region should be mainly dry and going through some clearing. If lucky, a lingering rain shower could become a brief flurry, but I am not putting that in the forecasts because at this point it seems unlikely that’ll happen.
For the eastern half of the region, the rain showers will still be going through the afternoon on Thursday and they will start to become scattered. Now this cold front will pass through Thursday evening and that is going to drop the overnight lows noticably in the east. However, despite the passage of the front in the west, the passage in the east will work a bit differently. The precip is going to linger on behind the front as cooler air rides over the warmer lake waters. This is going to give the eastern half of the possibility of some lake effect snow – though it won’t be a major event, it could give off about an inch of snow if we’re lucky.
High pressure tries to build in on Thursday night in the western half of the region and this is going to allow for clear skies and cooler temperatures to continue on Friday and possibly into Saturday.
Now to the Christmas weather. Over the past 11 Christmas’ the cities in the region have seen the following conditions:
Buffalo: 32° for a high, 22° for a low and normally you see snow as your precip.
Cleveland: 32° for a high, 23° for a low and normally you see snow as your precip.
Detroit: 30° for a high, 21° for a low and normally you see snow as your precip.
Erie: 33° for a high, 24° for a low and you have an equal chance of both rain and snow.
Fort Wayne: 29° for a high, 18° for a low and normally you see snow as your precip.
Toledo: 29° for a high, 19° for a low and normally you see snow as your precip.
Over the past 11 Christmas’, the region has seen a wide varity of Christmas’. The coldest two being the Christmas’ of 2000 and 2004.
2004 was the chilliest as highs in the Fort Wayne area only made to it 17° and Toledo barely reached 16°. The overnight lows that night were also around -11° for a low in Toledo. Buffalo wasn’t any warmer with a low that day of 1°.
To follow it up, the Christmas’ of 2005, 2006 and 2009 where awful to say the least. It rained throughout the region with highs in the 40’s all around. Even Buffalo hit 50° in 2006 when it rained nonstop.
I do have a table of the past 11 Christmas’, however I am having some troubles getting them up on the site, but hopefully for the 10.00 a.m. Update I’ll be able to have that table up, it is neat when you look at it.
So what am I expecting for Christmas 2011? I am looking at the models this morning, and I am seeing what appears to be a cold front on Monday, 19 December, and this is appearing to not work in our favor according to the GFS. This cold front might be a repeat of what we’ll see tomorrow and Thursday, but just how warm the temperatures ahead of the front will get is a little questionable. Further forecasting on this system will be made throughout the morning. As of now though, as far as a white Christmas, I am thinking that it will be unlikely…especially since the CPC’s last extended outlook, although they’ve been wrong before. Lets hope I am wrong this time for once.
I’ll have a brief update at 10.00 a.m., and those extended forecasts will be revised around that time as well. I’ll keep you updated as always, but for now, I am Timmy Albertson and that’s the weather! Keep checking back for updates because I’ll have them for you as always.
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