the anticipation of the first storm

Ti's the season to be jolly indeed. After a rather uninteresting November, winter is finally brewing as we approach the Christmas shopping season.

The Storm
We always get the excitement about the first winter storm we track. Since this is early in the ball game, right now we are just calculating the factors effecting the storm as well as weighing the projected possibilities. Few things to keep in mind right now:

1. We need a perfect set up to receive a major winter storm from this system
2. Arctic air may/may not be fast enough to make this storm cold
3. The models are still having the early season jitters, especially the Euro

With that being said, right now I am leaning towards the middle west app track for this storm and will treat the Euro showing a coastal track the outlier. There is also the possibility of it shifting even more west. Even if with the classic west of App track, I am concerned about the lack of arctic air which could turn snow into rain or mixed. I won't comment on the exact timing or even a vague amount as of now, things aren't too certain yet about this storm(as is always when it is still 4-5 days out).


Arctic outbreak

What IS certain is the fact that a big arctic outbreak will follow the onset of this storm. Temperature will certainly be very winter-like for a while after the 4th. My biggest question about this outbreak is how it will effect the storm track over the next little while. Will the arctic high pressure dominate and push the storms off the coast, leaving us with clippers? Or will the arctic air feed into the storm and leave us the cold side of several big winter storms? I will have a better forecast on this tomorrow as well as a map.

Misc.

Yes, I will still be using the naming system for this winter, I will still wait another 24 hours before giving this storm a name. In other news, the Raptors are horrible right now, but I am still optimistic they will turn around.

This is actually the first weekend in a while which I can actually relax a bit. I hope you like this new style of blog posts. Cheers to another season of winter storm tracking!