December Begins Mild-Warm Over Southern States...

Today begins "Meteorological" Winter, or the time of the year historically where the temperatures are coldest.  It is seasonally cold for much of the nation, but the upper pattern is setting up a very mild to warm pattern across the southern states.

Model guidance is not showing any eastward shift of that western trough for the next 10-14 days.  That should keep the super cold locked in over Canada.  Typically, the pattern does a flip after 2-3 weeks and IF that happens, perhaps the eastern states could get super cold leading up to Christmas.  Will that include us in the Gulf South?   It will depend on the strength of the eastern trough.

It's plenty cold up north, but the real chill is staying to our north and east.  The surface high is shifting to the east, but the dry air/low dew points have sagged well down into the Gulf.  Note the DP at Brownsville is back to 53, a sign that return flow has started.

You can see that on satellite loops as the low cloud deck is not far off our coast.  Winds haven't shifted back to the south yet, so it will take awhile before clouds return.  We reached 60 today and we're only going up into the weekend and next week.

A warm beginning to December often means a shift to much colder for the second half of the month.  I said it yesterday...start dreaming like Bing of a White Christmas!  Stay tuned!