Featured next Friday is an unusually low pressure of 970 MB centered on Nebraska. The low pressure causes a large area of extreme wind including sustained wind of 30-50 mph across much of the Great Plains with wind gust potential easily exceeding hurricane force.

Next week, 2 major storms are forecast across the eastern half of the U.S. featuring 4-8 inches of snow with high wind creating blizzard conditions across the North-central U.S. and a flooding rain/severe weather outbreak for the Mid-south States both events late next week into the weekend.

According to NOAA, the U.S. gas population weight HDD total for DEC/JAN/FEB 2024-25 was 2637 HDD ranking just-finished winter as the coldest since 2013-14 and 11th coldest of this century. Interestingly, the top 10 coldest U.S. winter seasons of this century all occurred by winter of 2013-14.

Today’s 12Z GFS forecast is the first to show a sprawling colder and stormy look since stratospheric warming conditions were in the forecast. At midday, the 12Z GFS reveals an evolving central North America longwave trough. The polar vortex shifts from the coast of Northeast Canada to Hudson Bay.