Monday Update: Snow Starved, For Now

Good morning. I am back from Hawaii and I wish I had better news for snow lovers over the next 10 days. Our weather pattern is not panning out as I thought in the short term and it now appears likely that we will have to wait till the end of December to see the shot at any winter weather. The good news is that there are many factors developing now that will support the eventual return of cold and stormy conditions. It is just that in the short term a few things are dominating our pattern that do not favor snow.

Summary:

• Seasonable to above average temperatures on tap for the next 10 days
• Big rainstorm for entire northeast corridor Friday into Saturday
• Chance of some light snow around Christmas
• Pattern being driven by thunderstorm activity in the Indian Ocean influencing jet stream to not  be in a favorable position
• Potential for a big stratosphere warming which can finally turn this pattern to cold an stormy by end of December/Early January

So what went wrong?

As it happens sometimes, one factor has been dominating the weather pattern. A variable called the Madden Julian Oscillation which is basically a pattern that tracks thunderstorm activity in the tropics, has those thunderstorms not in a favorable spot to put the jet stream in the right position for our area.

Looking below you can see those thunderstorms are now in the eastern Indian Ocean...

This is called phase 4 of this pattern and tends to produce an atmosphere that looks like this for December...

The models show a similar pattern over the next 5-10 days...

Red is warm, blue is cold. As you can see, this is not the pattern we want for the Northeast for cold an snow.

Eventually, the thunderstorms will move out of the Indian ocean which could cause our pattern to then be influenced again by other factors that support cold and snow per my winter forecast. 

A major factor developing now that can support this is the projected major warming of the Stratosphere. Although no guarantee, when the stratosphere warms, it weakens the polar vortex which increases the chances for high pressure to develop in the north pole allowing cold air to funnel south. This process is still not completely understood and I would still consider it a frontier in weather forecasting but when this has happened in the past it has resulted in a few things:

• colder weather more times than not for the lower latitudes
• high degree of model volatility in the long range
• potential increase for the chance at winter storms

The models show the major warming way up in the atmosphere. Notice the polar vortex (blue) pushed way off its axis...

This is something we will have to keep a close eye on for sure.

In the meantime, we will have a big rainstorm on tap for Friday into Saturday...

This hits the whole northeast with rain. Things then cool down in its wake for Christmas week although the pattern may still not be optimal for any snow. 

We need to hope that the models are struggling with the long range period due to the stratospheric warming and that due to this we may see the shot at snow between Christmas and New Years. If not, we then have to wait till January which based on many factors including my winter forecast should be active and cold along the east.

Only time will tell. Like always, the weather gives you no guarantees. My forecast for November paned out very well and unless it snows between Christmas and New years, December will be a loss. 

That leaves us with this for January in terms of my forecast...

Pretty bold and needed for this winter to pan out. Lets see what happens.

More to come later this week.