Arctic blast ahead.

Before I begin my thoughts about the upcoming arctic blast. I was happy to see some boxes with my name on it when I arrived home. Some of the new truck parts I ordered for the new chasemobile arrived. Not all of them, but some. The transformation will begin shortly and I must work hard to get everything completed by March 1st, which is my goal.

Some more stuff has yet to be ordered, but the 1st piece of chase related items to arrive is my taillight-hail guards. These should do well against baseballs or bigger.

And if they dont...well...at least they look cool.

On to the weather. It looks like the chicago area is in for another blast of snow. A good swatch of 4-5 inches could be expected which will re-establish a decent snowpack around here....but the bigger story weather wise which I have been watching for days is:


Now thats just ugly. Surface temps around -24 degrees Celsius?! BRRRrrr, it would be one thing if this were gonna stick around for a day, but projections have this big fat airmass sitting over us for almost the entire week with only slight moderations. This airmass has been chillin [no pun intended] over Alaska for days, and has absolutely brutalized them with cold their not even used to, I read it was their coldest outbreak in 11 years...with temps going as low as -65!! I cant imagine what that would feel like, I probably wouldnt feel it at all, Id just die as soon as I walked outside

I wouldnt be surprised to see some of our records become in danger. Right now I think this is being downplayed...its interesting to look at the 850mb level as right now it has a little core of extreme cold over NEern IL:


So thats interesting. Looking even further out it doesn't look like this damn NW flow is going away. Another interesting feature is a low of 943mb SW of greenland by day 8....thats weak hurricane status and just massive! The winds near that center will be insane.

Bottom line here is winter is about to make ANOTHER brutal assault on us. If I dont freeze to death I will try to take some pictures and whatnot. La Nina is beginning to develop, that should make for an interesting chase year, but may cause a delayed spring around these parts, much like we saw in 08

Stay warm everyone!