If you live pretty much anywhere in the continental United States, the story leading the local news probably revolves around the hellish winter conditions in your area. What you might not fully appreciate is that it’s rough everywhere in the country, save, perhaps, for the desert Southwest, though even there, there are some winter weather advisories around the 4 Corners.

In the Pacific Northwest, a large system brought significant snowfall not only to the Cascades, but closer to the coast, where Seattle was even placed in the grips of heavy wet snow before things could finally turn to rain yesterday. The storm has lost a lot of it’s organizational structure at the surface, but it continues to bring snow to the mountains of the northern and central Rockies.

Eventually, this system will be the feature praised for breaking the vicious cold snap that has been keeping everyone indoors and by the fire across the Plains. Record breaking cold has come to the far northern Plains, but also subzero temperatures are sinking as far south as Oklahoma. A wind chill advisory was issued for the Houston for the first time ever.

If you are in Houston, however, the cold is only part of the problem. East Texas remains in a winter storm warning, and are also seeing temperatures much colder than they are accustomed to, including parts of the state that are 50-60 degrees colder than normal. Snow and freezing rain blasted the state this weekend, with places as far south as Austin receiving half a foot of snow, and Brownsville and Harlingen seeing a dusting of snow.

A huge part of the issue, however, is the burden on energy in Texas. There are infrastructural issues with preserving power systems in the cold, there are also functional problems. Texas doesn’t rely on natural gas for heat like a lot of places in the north, with many houses not even having furnaces. As a result, the electrical grid is overwhelmed by the widespread use of space heaters, and millions of Texans are out of power.

Now, the system, as you might be able to discern from the warnings at the top of the page, is heading to the northeast, where it will be enhanced by the Great Lakes from Indiana to New England, but where the storm will really be dangerous is on the southern and eastern flank, from the Tennessee Valley to southern New England, where a significant ice storm is expected through the next 24-36 hours. In fact, the threat for freezing rain has started on the Gulf Coast last night, and continues to the north today.

The cold, snowy weather will not sweep into the southeastern United States, but the clashing of the record cold air mass with the typically temperate weather of the southeast will bring about a threat for severe weather.

There is even a high risk for tornadoes west of Tallahassee, with some concern for large, destructive tornadoes.

Winter is kicking our butt right now, America. Hopefully, we will get out of it by the end of the month.

A lot of the country has been gripped by chilly weather for several days, nearly since a massive storm blanketed the east coast at the beginning of the month. This is no ordinary cold snap though. It’s a full blown cold wave.

Even at 8-14 days, the Climate Prediction Center believes that the cold will continue for most of the country.

Must be nice to be in Florida, huh?

A strong, broad jet trough will remain in place, recycling with more cold air with perturbations rolling in from Canada. Through the middle of this week, the coldest air will sink from its position in the northern Plains south to Texas. Early next week, expect even colder air to arrive in the Upper Midwest, where it isn’t out of the question that -30 could be detected on the outskirts of Minneapolis.

The cold isn’t expected to finally break until mid week next week. Of course, that is more than 10 days into the future, and model guidance can be a little specious. Plan on keeping those long johns available just in case.

I know, I know, you think Adam Claibon should be the forecaster of the month, but he appeared on this site in February, not January. Tell you what though, since he did appear on THIS site, it’s only right that Victoria-Weather IS the forecaster of the month. I mean, it took more than just a guest appearance, we actually were near the top on every forecast that was put out in the first month of the year. Congrats, us!

Outlet	Forecast Wins
The Weather Channel	1
Victoria-Weather	1
Accuweather	1
WeatherNation
Weatherbug
National Weather Service
Forecast.io

There is fairly nasty system moving through the middle of the country tonight, bringing a lot of snow to the southern Great Lakes and some rain and thunderstorms to the Tennessee Valley. While that’s a big deal for people currently caught in the storm, it will become a bigger news storm tomorrow and on Monday.

The feature is very well organized right now, but as it approaches the Appalachians, the primary surface low will stall over Ohio, with the primary thrust of moisture shifting offshore through early Monday morning. While snow will begin Sunday, the really pivotal point in the life cycle of this storm, and the story this feature will tell will come on Monday morning.

The leading batch of moisture will start to reorganize in the open waters of the Gulf Stream. Most guidance suspects that the center of circulation will organize south of the eastern end of Long Island. This will mean a boatload of heavy wet snow for southern New England.

That is the common consensus for Monday evening. Heavy snow falling over the entirety of southern New England, except over Cape Cod, where heavy rain is likely. One prominent model, however, is changing things up just a little bit. It organizes this redeveloping low off the coast of southern New Jersey. It’s just far enough west that a little bit warmer air aloft infiltrates, and then we get this:

Because most of the models agree on what will happen, the forecast from the National Weather Service calls for a likely total of 11″ in New York City, with a maximum of 12″. There aren’t many things that can make this storm snow more than what appears likely right now. The uncertainty lies in that Euro, which brings in just enough warm air to reduce the potential snow down to 4″.

We’ll know a lot more by Monday morning, but it looks like a snowy start to the week and month for the Mid-Atlantic.