A new year, a new pattern, and a new storm potential!

Read the summary down below if you don't want to read the whole article; this weather news impacts people as far south as Florida and Texas. The first part is for DMV readers, though.

Happy new year to everyone! Hopefully, we can put back 2020 and move on. As the new year has come, we also have a chance of some snow, on Tuesday, and then something else to watch, during the time period of January 8th.

This tweet from the Capital Weather Gang says the chances for over an inch of snow (SPI) is 1/10, and the chances are rising. The Tuesday snowflakes part of the tweet is nothing too crazy to look forward to, but it is the last part of the tweet that is interesting, "next week as the pattern becomes friendlier for snow." 

This is the part that is for all readers, including the ones that aren't located in the DMV.

The pattern is important for winter weather, as it can decide how much moisture or cold air we get. Last year, we had the moisture but were just lacking the cold air. In the past 5 years, we haven't really gotten any storm that was crazy(With the exception of the 2015-2016 winter and maybe the 2018-2019 winter). This winter, for the entire U.S(as far as I am concerned), is a La Nina winter, which isn't good for snow in our area, because of the warm waters RIGHT next to the Atlantic. When the moisture comes(precip), there is warm air in place and there is rain. Right after, there is cold air, but no moisture. However, we can still see some above-average snowfall, even in a La Nina.

This map shows the pattern that will be coming in the next few days(Credit to Nikhil Trivedi for getting this picture, the picture was taken from his tweet.) If you don't understand this at all(like I do), the blueish colors represent the cold air. Due to anomalous ridging(which means that all of the warm air is in the Arctic air, or at least I think so), the cold air gets displaced and put to the south(Mid-Atlantic and interior southeast), which means we get cold air(certain about the pattern bringing cold air to us).  This means that places like Florida and Georgia could see some significant snow and winter weather! This is the same type of pattern that occurred during the epic and awesome winter of 2009-2010, where D.C alone almost measured 5 feet of snow and is the winter where we got the most snowfall recorded. (The interior Northeast didn't get much snow though that year). We got big, huge snowstorms and blizzards, that occurred next to each other(These storms were close to as big as the blizzard of 2016!). This could finally bring us the winter that we snow lovers in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast have been waiting for for a long time. These kinds of storms and patterns could close schools, even through virtual learning! This is one of the most exciting things about winter weather I haven't seen in a LONG time. I know I am hyping this too much, but we have everything in place! Now... we just wait. The potential storm on January 8th is the first storm in this pattern. 

This picture, taken by Matthew Cappucci(a meteorologist for the Capital Weather Gang), explains this pattern much better. This shows that in the Northeast + Mid-Atlantic(most of it), there is increased winter potential for some good storms, and as the picture above also shows, cold air locked into most of Pennsylvania and down to include most of the southeastern and central USA. In the interior southeast(Georgia, Arkansas), there is also an increased severe weather potential for you guys(thunderstorms, tornadoes, etc.). And in the west coast, and the upper Midwest, the temperatures will be above average. There's also an active storm track coming, which is why we have a good bet on some good winter weather. Our area is above the storm track, which is good, since it means that we will be in the storm track. I will be watching that Jan 8-9 storm, and making posts about it soon.

Summary:

If you didn't read the entire article and just want a summary, there's a pattern in place for our area that will lock in cold air for the Mid Atlantic, the Southeast, and a good chunk of the central US. There will be increased winter potential for the Northeast and increased severe potential in the interior Southeast. The upper midwest and west coast will see above-average temperatures. The DMV could see some snowflakes on Tuesday, and there's a bigger storm on Friday-Saturday that will be the first storm of this new pattern. Right now, snow lovers around the east coast are rejoicing. Thank you for reading!