Lets take a look at the reasons why. Our projected weather pattern will look something like this..
The red represents warm high pressure, the blue represents cooler low pressure. Notice that the cooler conditions are along the west coast. This in turn pumps up a warm high pressure ridge over our area for the foreseeable future. Remember the jet stream acts as a barrier between two air masses, so when it rises over our area like this, it allows the warm air from the south to flow up.
I mentioned in my post on Thursday how another big factor that is influencing this warmer pattern is the positive phase of the Arctic Oscillation. That will stay in tact over next week which also results in the cold air staying locked up in Canada.
So does this mean the Winter is now going to be warm? The answer is no. Right now we are simply seeing the jet stream react differently in one season as opposed to another. What I mean by this is as the season moves into Winter the temperature contrasts between the north and south will get more extreme. This STRENGTHENS the jet stream. When you strengthen the jet stream the same pattern that produces the image above in one month, can produce the complete opposite in another. This is something we are going to have to watch evolve as we head into the 2nd half of November. In fact, I think the period from Nov 15th to the 30 will look much different than what you see above. This means by late November we can find ourselves in a more winter like pattern.
But for now, lets all enjoy this beautiful weather and limited chances at rain though Friday.
More to come mid week.
Thanks for reading.
Still looks like a lot of warm sea temps in the GofAlaska, so yup, the big east trough could be with us for another winter season. But what about all that warm Atlantic water along the NE / New England coast . . . favors perhaps a + NAO trend, weakened Greenland blocking? I see that aer.com currently favors a negative Arctic osc over the winter given the good build up of Siberian snow. But that Nino is pretty darn strong, even if it may be a bit more "western"; and today's NOAA update doesn't see a declining trend starting until January. Overall, still looks like a really wacky winter season coming up! The only forecast I will make right now is that WeatherWilly site traffic will be high !! Jim G
ReplyDeleteHey Jim, so your right the northern pacific looks great right now. The nino region does look better than 1997 for cold and snow but it's too close for comfort and resembles 1982 in some cases. However, the warm anomalies are trending more west last few weeks and the convection is more west. What does this mean? It means we need the rest of the Pacific to be able to push that alutian low just enough off the coast and we are in business. Also, the nao and the Atlantic does look ok right now I like seeing some warm water in the Arctic with colder south then warmer south of that. If we get the negative nao then we are Def in business and right now it's a 50 50 from what I'm looking at. Bottom line your right this is a very tough forecast..don't know if you saw it but I tried to lay out a lot in my video for my 2016 outlook.
DeleteThanks for reading