Wednesday Morning Ramblings

Good morning. This morning I wanted to take another look at the period heading up to Christmas. With the exception of this weekend into early next week, this period will be categorized by mostly warmer than normal temps. What else is new right? Now, for those of you who might be sitting there calling me crazy for still maintaining my winter forecast despite this ridiculous warmth, I understand. However, remember it still is only December 16th and it can snow through March. With that being said if some of the factors I am looking at do not materialize by say 2nd week of January then I will call it quits.

When it comes to weather prediction you try your best to not let emotion play too much of a role in what is actually happening vs what you want to see happen. For example, yes this December has been much warmer than record. I was expecting a warm December BUT not this warm, no one was. Does that throw a wrench in the winter forecast? At this time no it does not. Remember it is about the evolution and what will CAUSE that evolution.

So before we review the evolution lets turn to this weekend. The storm system I was mentioning over the last week will develop and effect our area with Rain on Friday...

For interior areas of NY and VT/NH some snow will fall with this. Below is the projected accumulations

Nothing to write home about but hey in this pattern you gotta take what you can get. So what I got right was a more compact storm and not just an offshore low pressure wave like models where showing earlier. I did however think that the interior Mountain areas would do better than an inch or two if this formed. We still have 2 days to see if any more cold air gets wrapped in. Regardless, I hope you guys saw my point in how models evolved from say 10 days out to now and the difference that makes in where a storm forms.

In wake of this, the cold air moves in from Sat through Monday. You can see below the dip in temps to more seasonable, yes I said seasonable which is in the high 30's low 40's this time of year. Notice how then the rise starts again heading up to Christmas. Its nuts to see 69 degrees on Christmas eve! and 62 Xmas Day!

This is the pattern that will cause that big warm up..

All due to this massively positive Arctic Oscillation (low pressure at poles, strong polar vortex)...

In fact check out current temps in the stratosphere over the pole. In record low territory basically..

This is the biggest factor that is influencing our warmer than normal Florida like weather pattern. Now this is the key- we need a big reversal to occur here in the form of stratospheric warming. If that does occur and the polar vortex breaks up then Winter is back on the table. I have been showing you guys the projections on this and they have not changed. Below is the latest temperature chart way up there 168 hrs out..

 You can see this vortex will come under attack by warm air. The question in will it be enough to officially break it down. Time will tell. This is the reason why I am still holding on to my Winter forecast. I would expect to see this occur and it is. If this fully evolves then 2.5-3 weeks later we should see an effect on the Arctic Oscillation going negative thus a pattern change by say 2nd week of January.

Bottom line: As bad or as warm as the weather pattern is right now for snow, the seeds for colder weather in January are showing signs of sprouting. If come 1st week of January and these signs go away then this all could be over. I am not ready or expecting to make that call. Time will tell.

Thanks for reading.