White Christmas: Maybe not

The chances of getting snow this week don't look so good, despite what the forecast suggested last week. It may seem hard to believe -- especially with last night's low of -2°F in downtown Cape Girardeau -- but temperatures during most of this week should rise above freezing.

A strong storm system will move through tomorrow, bringing rain and possibly thunderstorms. However, the track of the low-pressure system is way too far north to even entertain the possibility of snow here. It would need to miraculously shift a few hundred miles to the south before we could talk about getting some white stuff.

Here's the map showing the projected path of the low:

(Image from the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center of the National Weather Service)

I've added a red target, located south of Memphis, that shows the "ideal" location for us to get a big snow. A few of the computer model runs do put the low that far south, but this seems extremely unlikely. As things stand now, expect a lot of rain and mud, but no snow for this Christmas week.

It's been a strange season so far: unlikely locations including New Orleans, Las Vegas, and even Malibu, California, have received far more snow than we have. At least this isn't Spokane, Washington, where two feet of snow accumulated last week and it continues to fall.