Though not an especially arctic outlook, New England appears positioned to score at least some snow and avoid the excessive warmth over next 10 days

Plenty of items to update on this first day of 2019 so let me wish everyone a happy New Year and get right to it. We gained a bit more clarity on our weather for the late-week period although it's still not entirely decided, the first full week of January continues to look less arctic but potentially snowy and some major disagreement has emerged in the long range ensemble guidance regarding the outlook for the middle and later parts of the month.

Models continue to sort through the plethora of moisture in the southern branch of the jet stream in search of a main area of low pressure that will serve as our big east coast precipitation producer. Moisture will actually begin streaming into area of decaying cold. On Thursday, some of this moisture will get sucked into a weaker Pacific disturbance and the result will be a period of snow for us. This should all begin prior to daybreak on Thursday and continue for several hours and then end by the middle or later part of the morning. All in all we can expect about 1-3 inches but it will be powdery, marking a bit of a change from recent days.

The main area of low pressure will hang back a bit and will actually remain close to the Louisiana coastline Thursday evening as skies clear partially across the state of Vermont. The storm will gain a bit of momentum on Friday and be situated over the Appalachian Mountains Friday evening while temperatures moderate in Vermont and reach the middle 30's. The storm will head toward the coast but questions remain regarding what part of the coast and how far north the systems associated precipitation can reach. It appears, as of late on New Years Day, that precipitation will indeed reach much of the state on Saturday but with very marginal temperatures, setting the stage for what might be an elevation event with rain at lower elevations and snow above 2000 feet or so. Whatever falls Saturday, and there certainly remains a chance it wont be much, it is unlikely to be especially powdery given the near freezing temperatures. A limited amount of arctic chill is expected to build across New England on Sunday and some snow could accompany this during the morning. By evening, skies should clear and temperatures should fall back into the teens which is pretty typical for January standards.

As I mentioned, the first full week in January doesn't appear especially arctic but New England may be the only place in the eastern U.S. to be safely out of El Torchy's reach, for the most part anyway. Mild air will work hard to try and displace this isolated area of chill and in doing so will establish an overrunning surface that might be capable of producing some snowfall in the early part of the week but I will wait another update to provide further details on this since those details will undoubtedly change.  It's possible that some mild air could sneak its way into the region toward the end of the week but most of the warmth which will reign over the central U.S. should stay out of Vermont. There are indications of another big southern streamer around the weekend but this is also way too far out to detail right now.

Then comes the long range. The ensembles can't be any different, especially across western North America and the Pacific. The European ensemble guidance paints a very bleak picture for us. Basically it's evil empire Jr in the Pacific and potentially very mild weather across for eastern North America. Both the Canadian and especially American ensembles weaken the jet stream across the Pacific and establish a large ridge that extends from California up through British Columbia, the Yukon and Alaska. I am certainly hoping for the colder version of events (The Canadian and American version) but I've become a bit of a cynic regarding the prediction of big things with the PNA and would certainly like to see support from the European model before promising such things.