Put away the shovel and grab the golf clubs!
Chicago - We started the week with the coldest air of the season so far. Tuesday was the coldest day since late February. After three straight days below average we start a new streak of above average days today that should continue through the weekend and possibly all of next week. This is bad news for snow lovers but good news for spring lovers. The National Blend Of Models keeps our highs above average for the next eleven days in a row. The average high for today's date is 38° and falls to 36° by the end of this eleven-day period. Next Wednesday will be the warmest day of the week with a high possibly soaring to 60°. It's hard to get snow with these temperatures but there is a chance for some minor accumulation with a mix of light rain and snow Saturday morning.
Our snow drought drags on. We are down nearly two inches from average for the month of December and nearly four inches from average since the start of October. I posted earlier this week about the chances for a white Christmas. Spoiler alert! They aren't that good.
This rather mild pattern overall might keep on coming all the way through nearly Christmas Eve. The 6-10 day temperature outlook has the highest probabilities favoring above average temperatures centered over the middle of the country and includes most of the Midwest and the entire Chicago area. This covers the period from next Tuesday through the following Saturday.
The probabilities drop just a bit but we remain strongly favored for above average temperatures overall in the 8-14 day outlook. This covers the period from next Thursday through the day before Christmas eve.
The GFS model gives us some slight hope for some snow right around the holiday. It is a long way off from a prognostication point of view but it has a cold blast coming on Christmas Eve and lasting through Christmas day. The problem is there isn't much moisture in the forecast to squeeze out appreciable snow. Stay tuned!