Looks like the 00z run went back to a ridge in the middle of the country again. sending the best cold east.

EPS weeklies have been slowly pushing back the transition period. A couple weeks back it was closer to January 5-15, now its more like January 15-20. Also, less of a tendency for the troughs to really dig south so I might get a very brief window, but if the EPS is to believed it would probably be the central and northern Plains that are more likely to see something the last 1/3 of the month and into February. If the EPS is generally right and doesn't keep punting I imagine there could be some good winter storms in the KS-IA-WI corridor, perhaps shifting around a bit with time.

I got a little thicker drizzle this morning which should intensify to rain this afternoon with steady temps around 50.

Terry Swails explains why models may struggle in the upcoming days with so much going on in the Pacific. When the short waves are bunched like this, the pattern gets noisy and models often struggle with the resolution of energy within the flow. Models can look substantially different from day to day as they attempt to resolve how the atmosphere will respond. Guidance is especially vulnerable to change when the energy is concentrated over the Pacific, where data grids are limited compared to what's available over the U.S. I'm anticipating some challenging forecasting, especially once colder air returns to the pattern next week.

Here are the phase 8 and phase 1 temperature analogs for January. Phase 1 in particular sends cold air into the central US with stronger possibilities of winter storms on the south side of the cold air. The AO and NAO look to remain negative for the entire month or very close to it! @gabel_23 showed some maps awhile back that included one of the signature storms of the LRC. This storm produced rainfall from Texas to Minnesota and showing up on the models.