OUTLOOK: January Unleashes Winter on Eastern US

Seasonally strong upper level jet stream winds have enveloped the North American Continent over the last few weeks and are expected to intensify as we enter the New Year. This vigorous upper pattern looks to bring with it a series of storms and an early season arctic blast for the Eastern US over the next one to two weeks.

The first of systems looks to bring mainly rain for the Eastern US with a bit of wet snow for the Central Great Lakes late over the weekend.

Following that, the Euro is advertising a quck moving "clipper-like" system cutting across the Plains/Ohio Valley on New Years Eve with mainly just rain before this system rapidly strengthens along the Atlantic forming a potent coastal winter storm for New Years Day that should be monitored.

Following the New Year's Northeaster the cold quicly becomes the story with medium-range ensemble models showing a very strong signal for unseasonably cold air for most of the Eastern US during that first week of January and likely beyond.

Just how cold are we talking? Latest data from the Euro is showing widespread teens and single digits for air temperatures by the morning of January 8th (12 days from now) over most of the Midwest. However, notice the core of the cold air over the Upper Midwest with temps running 10 to 20 degrees F BELOW ZERO.

When you factor in the wind, wind chill reading could drop to nearly 40 BELOW for parts of the Northern Plains and Western Great Lakes. The rest of the region looks to be greeted by WIDESPREAD SUBZERO READINGS to start the second week of January.