(As always, click on images to enlarge) As the polar vortex reorganizes in North-Central Canada during this period, cold will consolidate around it, meaning the deep arctic cold lifts out of most of the Lower 48. As with any retreat of deep, dense cold air, this process will not be a fast one, and will be slowest where the cold has been best entrenched - and will be at the start of the period - across Northern New England. Because of the likely sluggish retreat of the cold, and propensity for cloud development as milder air advances, Northern New England is the only region of the country I've indicated below normal temperatures for this forecast period. Elsewhere, a northward rising jet stream pattern will allow for expansion of mild, above-normal air during this period.
All the while, the jet stream will continue to usher several energetic disturbances across the nation, but the broad, retreating trough, and confluent flow off the Eastern Seaboard, will continue to limit just how much these disturbances can amplify as they approach the mean trough position. It would appear there is one impulse of note in the second half of the forecast period - the weekend of February 9/10 - and while this will pick up some Gulf of Mexico moisture and produce precipitation in the Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic United States, I don't have enough confidence that it can successfully make it all the way into the Northeast. That said, if there is going to be a situation that allows a storm to come farther north than expected early on, certainly a broad warm advection regime in a broad troughing pattern would be a good one to do it in, with the opportunity for warm advection, overrunning precipitation. At this juncture, however, there's certainly not enough confidence in this outlying possibility to bank the forecast on it. Meanwhile, the active flow of Pacific disturbances ensures another above-normal stretch for precipitation in the Pacific Northwest.
