Monday Morning 1-31

Hey everybody, my first attempt at the blog post here so let's see how it goes. It's an honor to be asked by Matthew to keep up the blog while he's taking vacation so hopefully this goes ok. I'll let my buddy Andy handle most of the localized stuff for the Carolina area there since he's more familiar with how things work up there.

Ok let's talk about what we have to start off the week here. A huge storm system will be getting organized through today and tomorrow that will affect a good portion if not all of the country east of the Rockies over the next couple of days. Check out the warnings thumbnail that Matt has on the left side of the screen and you'll notice basically everybody northeast of Texas is under some sort of winter storm watch or warning.

The culprit for this? A big trough digging into the western half of the country as we speak. By later today and tonight a very strong area of low pressure will develop in Texas and lift northeast into the boot heel of Missouri by tomorrow evening. We are talking sub 1000 mb pressure with this low . . . which is not rare for a nor-easter but is not as common for the central US. Take a look at this . . .



I hope that worked right if not I'll try it again. That's a look at the GFS model for tomorrow evening. You can see the massive low in southeastern Missouri. Lots of cold air pouring in behind it with a lot of warm moist air out ahead of it.

What does it all mean? Well, a big time snow storm basically anywhere north and west of that low. Several places in the midwest could see 5-10 inches. South of that low is where you have the cold front. It will produce heavy rain from the gulf coast up towards the mid atlantic, and potentially some severe weather along the front tomorrow as well.

Note that this system is much farther north and west than the previous few that have brought snow to the Carolinas and much of the south. So this looks like a rain maker for everyone in the region. We'll keep an eye on this for the next couple of days.

Hope this worked ok for everybody. Will love to see any thoughts you may have or any questions about this storm. Have a great day!