On this first day of the year, another winter storm is developing across the Heartland as low pressure forms along a deep atmospheric trough. The latter, produced by a dip in the jet stream, drops south along the Front Range to the Texas Panhandle and then angles northeastward across the Midwest and into New England.
North of the front, a band of light snow stretches from western Oklahoma to Massachusetts, covering eastern Kansas, northern Missouri, the Great Lakes Region and southern New England. This band will shift southeastward over the next 24 hours and snow will intensify as the low pressure centers pull in moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. In addition, lake-effect snows may be heavy along the southern shores of the Great Lakes as Arctic air plunges across their open waters.
The Great Plains and Midwest will receive frigid air but limited snowfall (except in the lake-effect snow zones). However, as the low pressure centers move off the Northeast coast, blizzard conditions are expected to develop in eastern New England. For those of us who enjoy winter weather, the new year is off to a good start; all others can take heart that the spring equinox is just eleven weeks away!
