Wintry Start Last Week Of January

Snowy vistas this morning at Mt. Lemmon General Store and downtown Flagstaff (bottom).

Precipitation from ALERT network (north above and south below) for 24-hours ending at 8:00 am MST. Amounts across main metro area ranged from around 0.20" to about 0.50". Only 0.21" here at the house this morning.

Powerful, cold 500 mb trough (above at 12 UTC this morning) continues over the western half of country.  A variety of watches and outlooks for hazardous weather cover much of the country (below). Heavy snow/winter weather advisories stretch nearly continuously from California to Washington DC.

Detailed NWS forecast for the airport (above) includes snow tonight and tomorrow, but with little accumulation expected at lower elevations.

Precipitation amounts at airport average around 0.60" inches in the GEFS forecasts, but only 0.10" in the 12 UTC WRF-RR this morning - note the WRF forecasts the donut hole effect. So quite a difference again between the models.