This week in weather is going to feel like one of those awful afternoons where there's nothing on television but Swamp People and you watch it anyway, because that's your life, pal.

When one considers all possible answers to the question "how bad are afternoon temperatures on January 12?", today isn't half bad if you live outside of a region with "north" or "Texas" in its name. An Arctic airmass is stuck over the central-third of the United States this afternoon, with thick clouds and patches of steady rainfall providing that raw, dreary January feeling to folks in the Northeast. The only pleasant spots in the lower 48 right now are along the northern Gulf Coast and southeastern Atlantic Coast, where residents are basking in heavy rainfall and temperatures are in the 60s and 70s.

We have about five more days of cooler-than-average temperatures before the pattern shifts and grants most of the United States milder—even warmer-than-average—temperatures almost everywhere except for the borderlands of New England. A couple of troughs and a weak cut-off low sweeping across the lower 48 will keep us relatively cool with some rain and snow showers in spots, but there will be remarkably little weather outside of the typical trouble spots.

Noteworthy rain? Only in the Pacific Northwest.

Snow? Go to the mountains or the Great Lakes.

It's going to be a long, boring week, and for the middle of January, that's probably not a bad thing.

[Temperature map by the author, model images via WeatherBELL]

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