The Polar Vortex
It's going to get cold. Darn cold! While record lows will be difficult to reach, this will be the coldest air of the season by a mile. It all arrives late Monday into early Tuesday. Remember, the models will not have a handle on the strength of arctic air of this magnitude. You can usually shave a few degrees off model temperatures.
Now, what about snow chances? I have stated over the past 2 blog posts my skepticism over significant snow, HOWEVER, I have a few thoughts that may interest snow lovers.
In some meteorological circles, this is being compared to the January 1985 arctic outbreak. While it will be difficult to ever match that here in Arkansas, the snow aspect of that event does interest me a great deal. I remember it very well. It does not take much moisture in arctic air to produce accumulating snow. I'll never forget the wind whipped, dry snow as the arctic air established itself over Arkansas. We received almost 2''. Not a huge snow, but one which would obviously cause problems. I have that event in the back of my mind as this arctic front plows through. It's hard to deny what the models are saying. Am I changing my tune? Maybe a little. I'm still skeptical, but open to the idea and will await future model runs. IF, and I mean IF it happens, it will be Monday night into Tuesday morning. No matter what, the big weather story will be the cold.
Beyond this wave of arctic air, the cold will relax only due to the fact it can't get much colder around here with this set up. We will NOT go into a warm pattern. I guess the best way to describe it is, not as cold. More cold shots will arrive in the long range and I would be shocked if we didn't get something frozen with it. More on that later.
