Enhanced snowfall potential Jan 28-Feb 6???

After a really, really boring weather period in the few weeks after the January 7th snow event and the January 11th rush hour snow burst, it seems that things are finally going to be picking up in the next 1-2 weeks. First, I'm going to discuss some minor short term events, and then I'm going to discuss why the time period from January 28th - February 6th looks pretty interesting...

First, just for the sake of mentioning it, here's the current radar:

That precipitation shield is going to try and make its way up into SE Michigan tonight, but it's going to have a very rough time overcoming the dry air in place. If by any chance precipitation does fall tonight, it would either be as very light freezing rain or snow. It won't be enough for a snow day tomorrow, but there's a small chance that the roads will be a bit slippery tomorrow morning.

Next, a strong low pressure system is going to pass to our west this weekend. Precipitation type will be rain, with an outside shot at a thunderstorm on Sunday (just think of it as a chance for our snow pack to start fresh again...because all the snow that hasn't been piled up will melt from this system). Anyways, the reason to like this system is that it's going to send a strong cold front through the area on Monday, allowing for much colder air to (finally!) move back into the area and probably stay for a little while. In addition, there could be a minor snow event as this system moves out. Accumulations most likely would not be anything notable, and that's something I'll focus more on over the weekend.

The real timeframe to get excited about is from January 28th - February 6th or so. I usually don't talk about long-range much in this blog, but as there's been nothing much to watch snow-wise in the near-term, I've been looking at the long-term. Considering that it is outside of 7 days, the forecast models have been fairly consistent in showing a cold airmass over our area, and a relatively active storm track. With all this in mind, I decided that the enhanced snowfall potential in this timeframe is worth noting. I'm not willing to get any more specific than saying there's a higher than normal chance for a snow event in this timeframe, considering we're still 1-2 weeks out. But it's definitely something to watch in the upcoming week.