How often do you see a seven-day forecast without any precipitation?  Maybe one or two times a year.  How often do you see this happen in January?  Almost never!  We're supposed to be in the most active time of year - mid winter - and the weather is not shaping up like it usually does.  Why not?

The jet stream is dead quiet.  The main driver of winter weather, the jet stream, serves as a superhighway for storm systems.  The jet stream is weak and south of our region. This keeps any meaningful precipitation out of our region.  The storm track favors the southeast US for the next week.  In fact, portions of the deep south may see snowfall later this week and into the weekend as two low pressure systems move through.  While all of this action is taking place south, our local weather stays seasonably cold and dry.

The other element missing here is a robust area of arctic air.  By now, we're usually starting to get occasional arctic outbreaks in the northeast.  These serve to generate heavy lake effect snow and bitterly cold temperatures.  There are some hints in the long range that the arctic cold will eventually drop south, but not anytime soon.  

The overall quiet weather pattern looks to last at least another week.  For those of you that enjoy winter weather, this type of weather pattern typically doesn't last.