Chris's Corner - The Winter Break is About to End

Later in the week, the pattern become quite interesting once again.
The aforementioned boundary will play quite a big role in where is
decides to stall. The ECM, being further south, would place St.
Louis further into the colder side, while the GFS is a bit warmer
and further north. The first surface wave moves in late Thursday
into Friday with increasing surface moisture from the south. A
strong cold front begins to push in from the north as several waves
move along the front during the day Friday. There is likely to be a
split in precip type from north to south with rain transition to
snow near/north of I-70 at this point.

The bigger question is to how far this cold air makes it south. The
next system moves in from the Rockies right on the heels of the
Friday precip. This is somewhat of a similar scenario to what we
face this weekend... positively tilted upper level trough with a
surface low traversing the south. ECM is further south and even
shunts most of the precip field south of the CWA with high pressure
building into the northern plains. GFS does not build this high as
far south and spreads rain/snow across the entire area Saturday.
This will be another system to watch as the week progresses.