Thursday Morning Weather Discussion: Winter's Arrival Scheduled

Good morning. The first week of November is now in the books and we are starting to get much more clarity on what the rest of the month will have in store. In short, winter will look to make an early arrival this year starting with a arctic shot tomorrow through the weekend and followed by a period of more sustained cold for the last two weeks of this month. It is now looking favorable that the period from the week of Thanksgiving into early December will feature a cold and active pattern. This is much different compared to what we have seen in recent years.

Summary:

• Arctic blast moves in tonight
• temperatures drop into the 20's for lows and mid 30's for highs
• Saturday morning is the coldest with teens to 20's
• Things moderate by Sunday
• More seasonable temperatures for next week
• The weather pattern then takes a big shift for the last 2 weeks of November into December with cold and story conditions developing in the eastern 1/3
• This can result in an early start to winter for many areas
• The culprit will be high pressure building in over Greenland which results in cold air funneling south
• If my predictions are accurate we will be looking at a wintery Thanksgiving to Christmas period.

So lets take a look...

An arctic blast moves into the region later tonight and will last through the weekend. Expect gusty cold winds tonight as the front moves through. Some snow showers are not out of the question north and west...

It will feel like January with temperatures dropping into the 20's tonight and barely reaching the mid 30's tomorrow for many spots. By Saturday morning, we are looking at temperatures in the teens to 20's...

By Sunday things will moderate some, but we all are about to be reminded that winter is not far away!


From there our pattern really looks to get interesting. Next week will feel very seasonable but then the weather pattern gets quite interesting....

I have been starting to talk about this in my last two posts and now it is starting to come to fruition and has model agreement. Above shows the weather pattern that will develop for last two weeks of November into December. This is a textbook active and cold pattern for the eastern 1/3 of the country. The key to all of this is that "blocking ridge (-nao)" over Greenland. That buckles the jet stream over the east and results in cold air funneling over the region. In addition any energy that comes into the pattern off the pacific gets clogged up over the east. This increases the chances for unsettled weather and yes possibly snow for areas. 

It is a pattern like this that really could make the front end of this winter very active and interesting. The research that I used for my 2018 Winter outlook supports a pattern like this developing. In fact, take a look at a blend of all the historical years that match many of the atmospheric factors this year and the pattern they resulted in for December...

In particular look at December 1995.....

The point is the pattern looks like it wants to go towards a winter that is very front end loaded. We have not seen this in recent years and will be a welcomed change in time for the holidays. Of course none of this is guaranteed but all the models are now starting to come on board. If the chips fall properly we will have a 3-4 week period starting just before Thanksgiving where winter action will be on the table. 


Stay tuned and bundle up this weekend!