December 10 - 12 Potential Winter Storm

There is the potential for a winter storm within the December 10-14 timeframe. Let's dive right into what the models are forecasting in this timeframe.

The Canadian's CMC model is projecting a deep low pressure system to be riding northeast along the Ohio Valley/Midwest area, and cold air in hot pursuit. The Canadian model indicates that precipitation will be ongoing in the bottom right image, with all precipitation north of the black line being snow and all precipitation south of the black line being rain. This rule of precipitation shows that snow could be ongoing across the Midwest and Great Lakes during this forecast, which is valid for December 10-11.

The American GFS model is predicting this storm to take a more northern track through the Upper Midwest and Plains, leaving an all rain solution for many of the areas that the CMC had given snow to. The GFS does give some good snow to the Upper Midwest and Plains, as shown in the bottom right image. However, the GFS is quicker with this storm system and is not as strong as the CMC model if you compare the 500mb height charts in the upper-left hand corner images.

Considering the GFS has had very high verification scores recently, and because the GFS has had this system in its sights for a while now, I will side with that model for the time being. I'm not counting out the CMC, but I believe the GFS knows what its forecasting at the moment.

Andrew