Pattern change will lead to snow threats starting next week.

The next several days will feature seasonably cold weather and dry conditions over Connecticut as a storm system should pass well to our south and east over the weekend.

The pattern is in a state of flux currently and by the middle of next week a colder and potentially snowy pattern will be in place.

The map below shows the average "upper air pattern" from the middle of next week through January 20th. We see three things in this map that we look for in a snowy pattern.

1. A trough in the Eastern United States. This brings a favorable storm track for winter storms to track south and east of our area which puts us on the wintry side of a winter storm as it locks in colder air.

2. A "blocking ridge" over Greenland (the oranges in the top of the map). This is called a -NAO or negative North Atlantic Oscillation. This blocking ridge helps to keep storms from "cutting west" which puts us on the warmer side of storms, this also can slow winter storms down occasionally which can lead to long duration winter storms.

3. A Western US ridge (the oranges off California). This is the opposite of the trough in the East which brings warm weather to the west and colder stormier weather to the east.

Now that we have all of the major pieces falling into place we have to look at each piece of energy in the atmosphere "rounding the trough" to see if it can team up with another piece of energy coming from Canada to form a strong storm or Nor'Easter riding up the East Coast. Once that happens, watch out! Let's see how it plays out, if you like snow, it's time to get excited. Some of our guidance shows this pattern lasting more than a week or two.