The question I get all the time-- When is it going to snow?

 Christmas Snow was nice for people west of the Blue Ridge, but accumulating snows never made it into Lynchburg. I wasn't shocked, but it was definitely a snow win for the Roanoke Valley. 

This pattern is weird in that November was so warm AND the Jet coming off the Pacific is so strong, we can't build any cold air in North America. We have good blocking  in the NAO and AO regions, but when those areas are toasty warm,  it doesn't matter. This active storm pattern with cold air would have a few snow to ice to rain events, but the lack of cold air gave us a marginal ice event and that's it for winter events. . 

Moving forward, a few things will happen:

1. Seasonal temps just get lower. I mean, It's January. Easier to snow with our lowest temps of the year because it doesn't have to be a huge anomalous cold. 

2. The blocking over Greenland (Good if you like snow) will drift even further west towards  Baffin Island, Canada. This aides in our cold air regions. It doesn't allow for Pacific air to invade Canada. They cool down, even if about normal and it is forced south. 

3. We have a Sudden Stratospheric Warming starting early January. The simple version is winds reverse way up in the stratophere that helps weaken the Polar Vortex. This sounds counter intuitive, but a strong polar vortex is bad for us and weak is better because it pushes cold air away from the artic regions and down to the mid latitudes where we reside. 

These both pre and post conditions to the Warming are likely connected by various factors and it should help shape a good pattern from January 15th into parts of February if you are a fan of cold and snow. We have no specific threats at this time, but my hunch says by mid January threats for snow and ice may be on tap. The last time we had something like this happen was 2018 and the pattern held up about 6 weeks with 3-4 winter events. (The last was snow on April 9th in Lynchburg and the Timberlake Tornado happened 5 days later)

Summary: Colder air should be in place by mid month with some specific storm threats likely at that time. Pattern may last 4-6 weeks of colder/ threats for winter precipitation. 

Red to Brown is higher heights over Greenland into NE Canada (Baffin Island) and Green and Blue over Aleutian Islands (Lower Heights, vortex) is a good look for cold and snow.