The title for this episode is Frozen Food. Why?

Clarence Birdseye, who introduced frozen foods to the marketplace, was born on this date in 1886. It's amazing when you think of all the frozen items now available...perhaps even more variety than in the atmosphere. Looking at the menu for this week's weather, we expect it to be dry broccoli all week, so there's no need to vegetate.

This morning, an approaching cold front is causing snow showers to pepper the Grape Lakes states. Even though it will turn colder behind the front, we won't go into the deep freeze. In fact, temperatures will be close to the long-term average, continuing a string of months that have been near or above normal. It won't be warm enough to cauliflowers. How long as that string bean? It's for more than a month. It is hard to remember a long-term frozen case.

While some people find this appetizing, skiers and snow lovers are not appeased. To them, snow is like 14-carrot gold. Even granular or corn snow would be something. Maybe a winter mix. They think the recent weather has been garbage. They spinach (spend each) day hoping for snow and cold weather, but it's been a grim harvest. There are signs of a change to a cold weather at times leading up to Christmas, but we'll have to see if the atmosphere will produce.

Basically, the weekend looks okay for most outdoor activities from Seabrook, N.H., to Hanover, Pa., all the way to Okrahoma. It won't be cucumbersome, and we don't see any storms to squash your plans. Make your healthy choice, be one of the Smart Ones, give regards to Sara Lee, and we'll promise to take another bird's eye view of the weather for you later.

Back to today, a high pressure area off the East Coast will be garden most of the area from having storms til later next week, and in New England it will be colder for the weekend. With Boston, Providence and Portland having sunshine, most of the Ivy League states will have fine weather, and in Cambridge, Mass., the weather will be so bright, folks will agree that few places will have Harvard beet. That's today's bird's eye view.

The 16-day GFS map for the night before Christmas:

Since the storm shown here had traveled north of the Middle Atlantic states, we can assume rain was the primary precipitation type until the cold air started pouring in behind it. Whether there would be much moisture left by the time it got cold would be open to speculation. I'm writing this as if the map shows an actual occurrence. If so, all that led up to this map would have been in the past tense.