[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCyyclZHE2g?hl=en&fs=1&w=425&h=349]

SEASONALLY COLD: Winter has its grasp across the area now with a fresh blanket of snow across the northern 2/3rds of the state. Temperatures will however remain near seasonal averages for the middle to end of January. A system will bring some light wintry mix changing to snow Sunday night into early Monday. An inch of snow looks possible with some possibly getting as much as two especially in northeast Iowa. Model had been showing a system at mid-week, but as of this run it’s no longer there, thus the next snow chance after Sunday into Monday will be the following weekend with another system.

GROUNDHOG DAY DEJA VU?: The blizzard of 2011 occurred right around Groundhog Day and the GFS is showing a possible snow storm that may bring some significant snow to the state for the second year in a row. We’ve seen this storm in model runs for a while now, off and on. One thing not on this run, the bitter cold high pressure coming down from the Arctic. The NAO is trending toward neutral to begin February which would point to what the GFS is showing us with this run, if the NAO goes negative then we might see the Arctic High Pressure on future runs.