I don't know if others feel this way, but I get really sick of the PSL interface and just making one map at a time. So I made some code that you can put into google colab. It allows you to set up your parameters via function arguments and you can select a range of years and get individual plots for all those years. It lets you do composite plots too but what I really had in mind was if you wanted to say, look at 50 hPa heights for December for the last 50 years. You can do it quickly. It will just get you 50 maps in like 45 seconds. It's just for Anomaly plots. Anyway, I can't guarantee it won't break. But it seemed to work for what I tested. Anyway, I know a lot of you make these plots so maybe this helps somebody. There are some commented out examples at the bottom. psl_code.txt Anyway, the reason why I made that is I wanted to look at the polar vortex position in relation to the winter. I see two current paths in model guidance. The AIFS camp that wants to keep the PV over Canada and the GEFS camp that moves it further east. Here are some matches I found. With that said, the group I grabbed for 50 hPa look colder than current guidance for mid month. So maybe my composite wasn't so great or maybe it'll trend colder at some point. Not sure. Looking ahead, the central Canada centered PV case rolls forward to a cold eastern half of the country in Jan-Feb. Not surprising given the analog years I found. It's similar in the PV-east case, but January is warmer. Maybe this is all garbage. But the thing that has caught my attention is the PV being displaced south over Canada. It just makes the cold more available and its probably why so many of the similar PV years were cold. I am not sure I buy it being as cold as these show to be honest and maybe by late December it'll be different enough that this analysis didn't mean anything. Time will tell of course.

35.6F is my low temp thus far… not even close… yet

I wish I had a Christmas 1990 one from Springfield’s most recent one. Or one from the Dec 2021 event. Last time we had more than an inch or two on the roads. Anybody else still not have a freeze yet?

Had to pull it out and hold it for a moment. It’s no longer fully round (got squished by a slab of beef) but it still felt amazing to touch again.

For the weekend storm, it looks like phasing will be too late. This could be a mid-Atlantic storm. Lets wait and see what happens. Still have a few days to watch this.