Wednesday, December 26, 2007

New Year's Eve Will be a Blast

I have a pretty good feeling that New Year's Eve will be a blast. I'm sure the noisemakers and festivities will be an immense amount of fun, but the blast I am talking about doesn't sound quite that enjoyable.

We will begin to feel a blast of arctic air by the time the ball drops on 2008. The graphic shown here is a look at temperatures in the lower portions of the atmosphere the afternoon of January 1st. We will enter into a strong northerly flow, which will cause temperatures to drop well below normal for the beginning of January. To the snow lovers cheering for lots of snow from Friday's system, remember that the more snow on the ground, the more intense this arctic outbreak will be. -ADAM

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I know this is off topic, but it was pretty warm out yesterday. I noticed all of the snow in our front yard melted by the end of the day.

What I was wondering is when is the 'offical' read for a 'white Christmas' with one inch of snow on the ground? Is this year going in the books as a white Christmas?

Just one of those things I was curious about. ;)

Footville, WI said...

I still have about half a foot of snow cover on all of my land up here. Some did melt but it is very white here!

tony said...

I am no expert, but I imagine it did count for a white christmas because of the fact we had 1 inch of snow on the ground as of midnight, of course most of it melted. Hopefully eric and let us know and see what this snow on friday may do.

WI Weather Buff said...

I am curious why NWS-Chicago and NWS-Milwaukee seem to have such different takes on the anticipated Friday precip event.

NWS-Milwaukee has reduced its prediction of 5-9" to 3-7" but has kept a widespread Winter Storm Watch in effect.

NWS-Chicago seems to think it will be a less significant event.

Since I live approximately 0.25 mi from the IL state line (in WI) I try to pay attention to both the Winnebago Co. and the Rock Co. (ergo, both NWS Offices) forecasts since either one could affect me - but I seldom see them in as much disagreement as they seem to be at the moment.

Any insights from the WREX Weather Team?

Thx.

Adam Painter said...

Jim, I forwarded your inquiry onto the head meteorologists at the National Weather Service who take the official observations and am just awaiting their reply. You'll know shortly after I know!

Anonymous said...

Hey Adam thats great! Thanks for doing that! :)

Adam Painter said...

Jim, this is the reply that I got from the Warning Coordination Meteorologist in Chicago this morning. Oddly enough, his name is Jim too!


We define a white Christmas as having at least 1 inch snow depth reported at the 12z observation (6am). Since snow depth is rounded to the nearest whole inch, that means you could have 1/2 inch of snow on the ground at 6AM and it could melt during the day. Since there was 1 inch snow depth reported on the 25th, this year will go in the books as a white Christmas.