My State Of The Winter Address

Fellow snow lovers, sun worshippers, viewers, and to all my fellow weather geeks, after record cold in November, some thought this winter would rip and roar. Then the Grinch stole a white Christmas with near record warmth. While many enjoyed the nice weather being outdoors and swatting mosquitoes, winter weather fans were dazed and confused thinking there's plenty of time for that the other 9 months of the year.

Snow lovers are starved. They're getting desperate. They think winter will never come again.

A young Todd Yakoubian at the age of 21 appearing in a music video for a class project in college. No way is this video getting out on social media. :)

I'm here to report to you THIS WINTER STINKS, but there's hope. A new weather pattern is emerging with the promise of colder air and storm systems to track. While 33° and rain has become the new normal in winter, we plan to strike a new deal with our partners in Canada to export more cold air and turn those rain drops to snowflakes. We hope that one day, school administrators will declare a snow day for all to enjoy, kids and adults.

The state of our winter is terrible, but with your help and a few snow dances, we're turning the corner to give winter one last chance before spring arrives.

Ok. I hope you enjoyed that and again, there's no way I'm posting the video where that picture came from. It was from a video production class and we had to produce music videos. I was asked to play a politician in one of them. MEMORIES. LOL.

The 1st half of winter is behind us and it ranks as one of the warmest on record in terms of average high temperature and average monthly temperature. Mother Nature usually tries to balance things out. We are turning the corner with shots of cold air arriving now. Can we ever get the moisture and cold air to meet up? I think it's possible, but we're still a long way from that happening. The storm track will become active later next week and into the first of February. I like what I see.

By average high temperature, the first half of winter is the 7th warmest on record

By average temperature, it's the 14th warmest on record for the 1st half of winter. By average low temperature it's around 40 warmest.

Those yellows in Canada shows ridging developing. That helps push cold air south. See the blues? Those are 500mb lower height anomalies. There's a storm track developing and it should move across the southern United States for late January into the beginning of February. If we can get the cold air and moisture to meet up. It can happen.

6-10 temperature outlook favors colder than average temperatures, but it shouldn't be super cold. See the below average temperatures favored in Alaska? They need to be above average. That's a signal the cold air is leaving them and going somewhere else. With the predicted weather pattern, that cold air should go south.

In the 8-14 day temperature outlook, more of the same. It should be colder, but still probably not super cold. That ridge needs to build into Alaska further.

LOOK! Now in the 3-4 week outlook, it's looking better. The odds tilt towards below average temperature. It's warming up a bit in Alaska. The far southeast U.S is warmer than average with below average temperatures over us. MAYBE an active storm pattern with a battle zone somewhere between.

Total monthly snow for Little Rock since records were kept. January is our snowiest month, but there's still plenty of time.