In today's Forecast Feed, Bernie Rayno takes a look at the weather around the country during the week of Christmas.

AccuWeather's outlook for Christmas week indicates a calm beginning, with high pressure dominating the early days. However, a frontal system is expected to move into the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic around Christmas Day, potentially bringing snow, ice, and rain, particularly to Pennsylvania and New York State. 

Both European and American weather models suggest the timing and intensity of the wintry mix may vary, but ice could pose travel risks. Meanwhile, California is forecast to receive much-needed rain and heavy snow in the Sierra Nevada, which is important for the region's water supply. The Western United States, including the Northern Rockies, is also expected to benefit from this active weather pattern.

What will the weather be like for Christmas?

Hi, we continue to look at Christmas week. We've been looking at that for the last five days or so. It's going to start off tranquil as we get in the early part of the week, but again, somewhere around Christmas day or even the day after Christmas, there's going to be an opportunity for a little bit of snow, ice and rain across the Northeastern part of the Mid-Atlantic here. I want to take you out to the surface map on Monday. So here you go. This is our surface map on Monday. And what do you see is you see that you've got an area of high pressure here on Monday, right in here. You see that now. What does that mean? Should be a relatively tranquil start to the week. But as we go forward, watch what happens. There's going to be another little frontal boundary that's going to approach as we get into Tuesday and Wednesday. Here comes right in here. Now, I'd have had that on Tuesday. Could be some spotty precipitation here across the Northeast, won't be a whole lot. But that sets us up for Christmas day. And let me show you what happens here. Here's that frontal boundary Tuesday and Wednesday. Watch the cold air come down. And then as we set up on Christmas Eve, what do you see? You see a puddle of cold air here. You see this, all of the blue here? This is where you're going to have an injection of cold air. Now, as we've been talking about from the get-go here, the real question is, are you going to have a system attacking the cold air from the West Southwest? And if you do, you're going to get an area of snow. So again, here's the cold air on Christmas Eve. You can see it banked up in here. Now, do you get a system coming out of the West Southwest flow to attack the cold air and produce some precipitation? Now, I think the answer is yes. What we're not sure about is how far north this system is going to be. And that will dictate who gets the snow. Let me show you the surface, the upper-level map here. This is European. So here we go. Here comes the frontal boundary Tuesday and Wednesday. There's Christmas morning. You have an area of high pressure here. The cold air is in. Now, what does the upper air look like? You've got this piece of energy right in here. You see this across the Rockies? That's Christmas morning. That then comes east and then pushes into the northeast as we get into Christmas night and the day after Christmas right in here. And what the modeling is showing is that there could be some ice. There could be some ice with this. According to the European model, this isn't going to be arriving until Christmas night in the northeast. There'll be some problems Christmas day near the lakes. But you can see the cold air. Look at all this. The pink's showing up. This could be some freezing rain as we get into Christmas night, Friday morning. And then that goes to the wayside. And then we get brisk and colder as we head toward Christmas weekend. Now, that's what the European looks like. I want to show you the American model. Same kind of idea. You've got a frontal boundary coming on through. Here it comes as we get into Tuesday and into Wednesday. Here it is. All right. So here we go. This is Christmas Eve. Same idea. You have an area of high pressure. Now, the American model's a little faster. You see, here's the shortwave in here. The European has it out across the Rockies, but the American model has it across the Midwest right in here. So as that comes east, that comes right into the cold air when? On Christmas Day. And you can see what the American model does. It tries to bring some ice, some freezing rain, and a bit of snow across Pennsylvania and New York State on Christmas Day. European shows the same thing. It's just a little later in the game. It doesn't happen until Christmas night and the day on Friday. So this is something we're going to have to watch here. There appears like there's going to be a snow and ice threat across New York State and Pennsylvania at some point Christmas Day or Christmas Day night into the following Friday. It doesn't look like a big storm, but it would be an impactful one just because of the threat of ice. One other thing I want to talk about here, I want to talk a little bit about California here. And I want to show you this. They've been bone dry in California. We don't have a lot of snow in the Sierra right now, but as we get into next week, look at this big dip in the jet stream starting to take shape here Monday. And then watch this as we get into Tuesday and Wednesday. So this is Christmas Eve. So this is a pretty good setup for rain in Southern California. You've got this big dip in the jet stream. And you can already see rain trying to come into Southern California. Here we go. And more importantly, and I cannot stress this enough. This kind of pattern Friday, Thursday, this is Christmas Day, and this whole trough coming in to California in the Saturday. What this will also do is produce a lot of snow into the Sierra. And this is exactly what we need. Because you have to remember when it comes to California, what's just as important as rain, you also need a lot of snow in the Sierra. Because remember, it's that snow melt that fills the reservoirs during the spring months. I want to show you next what this snow's going to look like here moving forward as we head into the next seven days. I like to start with this and then show you what it's going to look like. So here we are right now today. So this is all of the snowfall. And what it's going to look like here as we go in, here's Christmas Day. And watch what's going on here in the Sierra. Wow, look at this. As we head in the next week. You see that? Late next week. You're talking about feet of snow in the Sierra. And that's exactly what we need. Also this is good news for the Intermountain West. You see that? They need the snow in the Northern Rockies as well. So this is a good pattern for the Western United States to get to rain and mountain snow. The other thing to notice when you look at this snow as we go forward, there's not going to be a lot of it. The snow will continue to fall from the lakes toward New England. But once you get to across parts of Pennsylvania and Virginia, it seems very unlikely you'll have a white Christmas. But let's watch that storm on Christmas Day. And that's the feet.

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