Evil Empire returns after a cold finish to the week

MRG continues to bask in the glow of a great holiday week and a remarkable reversal of fortunes to end 2012. The "basking" can continue through next weekend as the Polar Vortex rotates through northern New England this week and off into the Canadian Maritimes. Accumulating snow will be minimal although weaker disturbances are capable of bringing flurries and light snow to the mountain. The best chance for this comes Wednesday and again on Friday. We talked about some of the cold weather in the last update. Interior New England will have the lucky distinction of seeing the coldest weather in the U.S. over the coming days. The coldest period should be Wednesday night into Thursday morning with readings getting to about -10 F and struggling to get above 10 during the day Thursday. Temperatures will moderate for the weekend with readings getting close to 30 during the days. An increase in the clouds Sunday should be followed by light snow later in the day or at night as a more significant clipper disturbance brings a good chance for a 2-6 inch snow by Monday morning.

The Sunday night/Monday clipper is the best chance for the mountain to pick up some new snow over the next 10 days. The headline does not lie unfortunately. The "evil empire" is back and signs of trouble are all over the medium range models and ensembles after the 10th of the month.  The Arctic Oscillation (AO) and North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) are expected to continue to be on the negative side of zero which is a much needed and encouraging ally in what will be a very tough fight to preserve our snow (and thus the reason the favorability index isn't worse). I didn't give the "evil empire" its name for nothing however, it is the "death star" of winter weather. Especially when coupled with a trough over Alaska, the feature not only encourages zonal flow, it favors the cold weather across the western North America. The effects of all this may not begin to impact MRG until the 10th of the month and will not be uninterrupted. Overall however, this is going to be 2 weeks of a generally adverse pattern that will continue through about the 22-24 of the month (loose prediction).

Much of the United States will be very much on the milder side of average by the end of the upcoming weekend. Canada however will continue to remain on the colder side of average for much of next week. To save the 2nd full weekend of the month we are going to need some sort of buckling in a very zonal jet stream that will allow some of this cold to fight its way back into New England. The models have yet to come into full agreement but as now they support a slow erosion of below freezing temperatures next week and a potential rain event by around the 10th of the month. These are ugly details I know, but we it would be wise to keep our expectations low for the middle of the month. Hope everyone had a happy and safe New Year.