Snow is likely Wednesday.
Most of the accumulation will be in the 5-11 a.m. time frame. After that there may still be snowfall, but it will have a hard time sticking.
Any slippery travel should be in that 5-11 a.m. time frame, then considerable melting should occur as temperatures climb from 28-31 to 33-37. Some drizzle or bits of rain may even mix in during the afternoon.
Tomorrow night, although system snow will be out, some lake effect flurries & snow showers are possible. This, combined with any moisture freezing from lows 27-30 means a few slick spots overnight to Thursday morning.
Thursday looks mostly cloudy to cloudy, but milder with 36-42 for highs, then 25-30 Thursday night with some clearing & some patchy fog with frost.
Friday looks mostly cloudy with 39-45, followed by mostly cloudy skies & 44-50 Saturday. A few showers are possible in the p.m. Saturday-Saturday night to Sunday a.m.
With skies becoming partly cloudy, highs of 42-46 are likely Sunday.
Monday looks partly cloudy with 47-53, then partly to mostly cloudy skies Tuesday with a few isolated p.m. showers with 48-56.
We should turn cooler Wednesday with mostly cloudy skies & highs 38-44.
Saturday, Sunday, Monday & Tuesday all show a tendency to be breezy with gusts to 25 mph.
After Tuesday, it looks dry until Thursday-Friday or Christmas Eve-Day when rain comes in with strong gusty winds.
Note the strong south-southwest winds & rain with temperatures surging well into the 50s, possibly 60.
Kansas to Wisconsin looks to see the snow for Christmas, along with strong winds.
It still looks like there could be severe weather across the South.
It looks colder after Christmas briefly, then warmer with rain before 2021 arrives. That should be the storm that changes the pattern towards colder with greater snow & ice risk in the early part of January.
Thing is, the latter half of January looks quite mild with more rain than snow. We may end up with near normal snowfall wtih 6-12" for the area, but a chunk of it may occur in a short period of time then melt quickly.
There is currently no sign of any really bitterly cold air in January. We may have a night in the single digits, but no widespread 0, -0s or -10s are seen.
February & March look warmer than normal with an early start to spring. However, there is above-normal potential of icing event or ice storm in February.
I did go below normal for snowfall February-March-April however.
February & March look wetter than normal with higher risk of cool-season severe weather episodes & flash to river flooding.
Overall January-February-March-April together show a mean temperature anomaly like this:
The January-February-March-April melted precipitation & rainfall show anomalies like this:
It should be an early start to surges of summer heat in May.
There is a higher risk of severe & tornadoes in April to part of May this year (highest since 2010, 2011).
Hot upper ridging is a persistent feature for Summer 2021 for the Plains & Midwest. Still looks like pretty high potential of 100 for the first time since 2012 (we were close in May 2018 when we had warmest Memorial Day since 1911 or the second warmest Memorial Day on record).
Drier than normal trend is shaping up for Summer 2021 overall. Widespread drought is possible, though severity is unclear.
Still looks like higher than normal risk for a Serial Derecho.
Hopefully in the midst of the hotter, drier Summer the drought will not get too out of control & we can time out some storms to keep the crops going well.
The 2021 hurricane season looks very active again. It may be a bit less than 2020, but still above to well-above normal per storm number & intensity. These systems could help bring rainfall. 2005 is a good of example when tropical systems saved us from a devastating drought. In Illinois, 2005 was a terrible crop year like 2012 with temperatures in the 100s on multiple occasions. Multiple tropical systems here made all the difference making for a better crop.
Hopefully that happens here.
