Wisconsin Weather: Why Will It Be A 'Warm Christmas' For 2019?

MILWAUKEE, WI — A lack of snowball fights. Sad ice skating rinks. Idle snowblowers and snow shovels. And for some people ... it's shorts weather! What's going on with Christmas weather in Wisconsin?

Not that many people are worrying about it. Yet, we at Wisconsin Patch were wondering about this, so we asked the National Weather Service in Milwaukee about it.

"The major factors that drive our winter weather pattern are the polar jet, over the US and Canada, and to a lesser extent, the subtropical jet, over the southern US and subtropics. These are air streams in the upper atmosphere that basically steer our weather systems across the United States," the National Weather Service told Patch.

According to the National Weather Service, a low-pressure weather system can break off from the polar jet and meander off on its own until it is eventually picked up by stronger winds aloft again.

When this happens, weather officials told Patch, we can experience something called "split flow" where the Midwest gets "split" by both the polar and subtropical jet, as the polar jet ends up too far north and the subtropical jet ends up too far south to bring in new low pressure systems to the the Midwest.

As a result, the National Weather Service said, "we tend to have high pressure and southerly winds, which give us clear skies, dry conditions, and mild temperatures. Areas like the mountain west and the Gulf coast get inundated with rain and snow, however."

Forecast

Christmas Day
Patchy fog before 10 a.m. Otherwise, mostly cloudy, with a high near 48. Southwest wind 5 to 10 miles per hour.

Wednesday Night
Mostly cloudy, with a low around 40. Calm wind becoming south around 5 mph after midnight.

Thursday
Mostly cloudy, with a high near 51. South wind 5 to 15 miles per hour becoming west in the afternoon.

Thursday Night
Mostly cloudy, with a low around 31. West wind around 10 miles per hour.

Friday
Mostly sunny, with a high near 40. West wind 5 to 10 miles per hour.

Friday Night
Increasing clouds, with a low around 30. West wind around 5 mph becoming south after midnight.

Saturday
A chance of snow before 7 a.m., then a chance of rain and snow between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m., then a chance of rain after 9 a.m. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 43. Chance of precipitation is 50 percent.

Saturday Night
A 50 percent chance of rain. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 31.

Sunday
A slight chance of rain and snow. Partly sunny, with a high near 40. Chance of precipitation is 20 percent.

Sunday Night
A slight chance of rain and snow. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 26. Chance of precipitation is 20 percent.

Monday
A slight chance of rain and snow. Partly sunny, with a high near 36. Chance of precipitation is 20 percent.