This month will exit with the honor of being the coldest December in several years and bucked the trend of the past two years of warming. Not to be outdone, January is setting up to be really cold.
How cold? Cold enough to start freezing small ponds and waterways. Even the cold snap we had recently froze over parts of the lower Salmon Creek backwaters in Felida. This will be real arctic air as it slides southward to cover all of the Pacific Northwest. Even northern California will feel the chill.
Weather charts show a Rex Block of high pressure in the jet stream which allows warm air to migrate northward into Alaska and cold air from the Yukon to engulf the northern half of the U.S. It will be chilly. Highs by Monday will be below freezing and lows could get into the lower teens in the outlying areas. There will be east winds too.
The million dollar question will be if any snow precedes the cold air. Quite often we get a flurry of snow as the cold air arrives and slides under the warmer air mass squeezing out some moisture. No guarantees here, so stay tuned in the next couple of days to see how the pattern develops.
