No change in the outlook this morning. Dry today and most of tomorrow. Temps may add a couple more degrees today over yesterday, but we do not have a “blowtorch” set up that brings super warm air. Just working our way slightly above normal.

We still have a 3 day period of moisture working through the state with breaks in between. Our timing is nearly unchanged from yesterday. The first wave comes in tomorrow night and goes into early Saturday morning. Moisture comes up from the southwest and will leave the state by Saturday midday to early afternoon. We like moisture totals from a few hundredths to about a quarter of an inch with coverage at 80% of the state. A few areas in the SW corner of the state may push over a quarter of an inch, but that will not be on a large scale. Our thinking on sloppy wet snowflakes is unchanged as well: we will keep an eye out in NW parts of the state, but in general, we don’t look for snow to be a major part of our forecast.

Wave #2 comes in for Christmas day. We are bumping timing up on this event just a little bit, looking for rains to be over the state already Christmas morning, and lingering though the day. Rain totals look to be from a few hundredths to about half an inch in a few spots. Coverage not as much as we had been looking for – we put it at 60% of the entire state. Coverage in the south is better than but not as good in the north as we had been seeing. Either way, clouds hold all day – so a rather gray Christmas is in store.

The third wave and a strong cold front sweep through for Monday. Rains here can be another quarter to half inch or more with coverage at 100%. We need to keep an eye out for thunderstorms, although the threat does not look as big this afternoon as it did 24 hours ago. Still, this moisture brings our 3 day totals to half to 1 inch. Some areas may still push toward that 1.5” number we published yesterday, but with the lower chance of thunderstorms, we don’t think there is as much of a chance for the heavy rains. Still, with the snow in parts of the state and the rains that are coming, extra water will be around for the first half of next week, and there can be some minor flooding to talk about. The map above shows potential for cumulative rain totals through Monday evening.

Colder air comes in behind the front for Tuesday and Wednesday, with temps below normal over most of the state. WE see a weak little upper level wave bringing the chance for some light snow to the state on Wednesday. But, a bigger player could be a system for Thursday. The European model is bringing most moisture in on its latest run…it’s still not to the level of the GFS, but we feel confident in saying there will be some rain and snow in for Thursday, and we could see moisture totals up to at least half an inch. Most of the precipitation will be rain, but colder air is here, so we have a concern about accumulating snow over the norther third of the state. There is plenty of time for this to modify and change track…but at this time, we look to be a little active for the 29^th and 30^th.

Cooling down again as we flip the calendar into 2017, but we should be rather calm and tranquil, with no major systems for that holiday weekend. We still think we see a system shortly after, though, for the 4^th-5^th-6^th period.

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