Meteorological winter (Dec 1-Feb. 28) certainly started off on a “wintry” note with a blanket of snow cover over the area and an official high temperature of only 32°—the coldest high since last February 16th! A return to southerly flow starting later tonight will bring milder readings back this coming weekend and wipe the snow cover slate clean. November finished up as a month of contradictions—temps averaging 4.4° above normal and yet the 5.1” snowfall total (thanks to two storms in the final week) was the 14th snowiest of 121 Novembers since 1884. The last time November had more snow was in 1978 when 7.1” was recorded.
Pacific-origin air will continue to flow across the northern half of the country well into the middle of next week, but at that point computer projections tilt the polar jet allowing an arctic cold air mass to invade the central Plains and Midwest by mid-December.
