Name: Wintry weather to continue for first half of December
Uploaded: 2025-12-05T16:10:05.667Z
Duration: 6 min 51 s
Description: From snow in central Virginia on Dec. 5 to more chances for wintry weather in the Northeast in the coming days and an atmospheric river approaching the Northwest, busy weather patterns are ahead.

From snow in central Virginia on Dec. 5 to more chances for wintry weather in the Northeast in the coming days and an atmospheric river approaching the Northwest, busy weather patterns are ahead.

Forecasts indicate that wintry weather will continue across much of the United States through the first half of December. A storm is expected to bring 1-3 inches of snow to Richmond, Virginia, and surrounding areas, with additional waves of cold Arctic air impacting the Midwest and Northeast. 

Models show further disturbances, including a Sunday night system with varying snowfall predictions, and another midweek event bringing rain and snow to the Northeast. The Pacific Northwest will experience heavy rainfall and high-elevation snow due to an atmospheric river event early in the week. A brief warm-up is possible in the Midwest before colder air returns.

Wintry weather to continue for first half of December

In the forecast feed, we have a lot to talk about here from a brief look at the mid-Atlantic storm cruising east through the early part of Friday. It's going to bring one to three inches of snow to Richmond, Virginia. That's a big deal. And then also more waves of cold, Arctic air. Will we get any relief? Is there going to be any kind of a warm-up in the next 10 days? We'll take a look at that in the Midwest and the Northeast. And also the Pacific Northwest is getting into some incessant rainfall with the atmospheric river event. Actually, there's a bigger one setting up for early next week. So let's take a look at what's going on. Big picture. Into the weekend we go. And here you can see the overall jet stream configuration, the pattern. It is a big ridge in the west, big trough in the east. And overall, the waves of cold just continue to come on down following various Arctic fronts. So again, there's an Arctic front that has moved through and is moving through. But by the weekend, it will have moved through. And in the Northwest, it is ridgy. So that's where the moisture is coming in. Rain and relatively high snow levels. In other words, lower passes will be dealing with rain, but snow in the higher elevations. And under the ridge, we have this big, nice zone of high pressure and really pleasant weather across the desert southwest and into Southern California as well. But looking ahead into mid-December, in general, the ridge to the west, the trough to the east will persist. This pattern is going to continue to ascend and hurl cold air, very cold air, into the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast and the Midwest as well. Let's look at some models here. We can take a look at the overall pattern in the short term. It's not an impressive storm system in terms of its jet stream energy. It's a relatively short wave. It's a flat wave. It is a short wave. But you can see this disturbance in the Southern Plains on, well, if we look back in time, back earlier today, earlier this Thursday afternoon and evening, that's the system is kind of racing east. And it's a very narrow, short, abbreviated dip in the jet stream on the short wave scale. Again, we talk about long waves and short waves. Long wave trough, but then little short wave troughs. And there's a very weak short wave trough that's producing a bit of snow into the Mid-Atlantic. It's not a very strong storm system, but there's moisture nearby, and it's cold out there. So it's going to be just enough to produce, on the northern side of the storm track, this area of snow in Virginia. And it's going to bring some accumulations, even into Delaware and Maryland. This time of the year, it's early, very early, but you can see the European producing a one to three inch event, with even localized three plus out near Blacksburg and Roanoke. And we're forecasting Richmond to see one to three inches out of this one. Now, I really wanted to focus a bit more on the future. What's going to follow that system this weekend? Still chilly. There is another disturbance on Sunday night that comes in from the Great Lakes. There it is, Sunday, Sunday night, into the lower Great Lakes. And again, there is some disagreement as to how this will play out. The GFS brings this through with some interaction from a system farther south. So as we take a look at the surface reflection, here's the GFS. It's not a huge storm, but it would bring us a few inches of snow on the west slopes of the mountains, and maybe a coating to an inch down into areas like Allentown, PA. And again, it's just closer. Here's this disturbance to the south. There's a little more interaction between these two. You can see some of that greater precip amounts here with that southern disturbance, kind of on the axis of Savannah, Georgia or so. Now, if we go to the European, it's not quite as deep of a dip in the jet stream there. You can see that disturbance moving through Cincinnati. There's bright colors. That's vorticity. It's spinning the atmosphere. And if that's approaching you, you're going to have lift and more rain and snow production. And again, there's the GFS. The European, it's a flatter wave that stays farther north, and then there's a southern branch contribution to this, but it's so far removed from it that, again, they're sort of just out of step with one another, and they're not really interacting much. So while we have this opportunity for some snow in the interior northeast on Sunday night in the GFS, Sunday evening, Sunday night, the European is pretty abbreviated, and it brings snow showers, but again, it's not much, and probably nothing falls east of the mountains with this one, aside for maybe up into parts of Maine. So again, there's a little bit of a disparity there. The European is very timid with that, but the GFS would bring us some one to three, locally three to six inches in the heart of the snow belt areas, and again, a little bit of a disparity there. Behind that, here we get into the middle of the week. The hits just keep on coming. Long wave pattern, still ridge in the west, trough in the east, and there's a pretty sharp short wave that'll be riding the base of the trough, and here we get into Wednesday night, Thursday morning with the European, also a disturbance there, and the GFS actually tilts negatively and digs into the northeast and the mid-Atlantic. So here we can see the GFS with this system. It brings us a burst of rain for south Jersey and some snow in the interior, and then behind that, again, the next warm-up actually comes in, but in the European, similar story, Wednesday to Thursday, a disturbance that mainly brings some rain showers to I-95, or at least south Jersey, but some snow into the interior. Now I mentioned a little hint of a warm-up. After a little clipper that may follow Friday, look at this. We begin to see these thickness lines in the atmosphere. The atmosphere is warmer, it expands, so the thickness lines kind of reflect that. You can see a little bit of a warming trend. In the GFS, it actually warms the atmosphere up in the Midwest ahead of the next cold front, so that the 540 line, which is kind of the rain-snow line, just in general, real fuzzy math, comes all the way up north of Green Bay for a time. Now to get colder behind that, but the depth of the trough that follows may not be quite as dynamic. So overall, the big picture shows, again, disturbance in the mid-Atlantic in the short term, Sunday evening another disturbance, another one across the Midwest into the interior Northeast Wednesday, Thursday, and then another one that may bring eventually some more cold that follows a brief warm-up. So that's what's going on with, again, the next several days. I wanted to briefly take us early into Monday with an atmospheric river. This is the North Pacific. We're going about 10,000 feet up. Look at this long, long ribbon of moisture coming into the Pacific Northwest. So another story to watch. Heavy, heavy rain coming to the Northwest early next week with some high elevation snow.

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