Just one week away!

There is without question a pattern change taking place middle of next week. This change is one that favors cold and snowy weather, and I'll tell you why. The arctic oscillation has a positive and negative phase. The positive phase is when the stratosphere over the arctic is cooler than normal which allows for a strong polar jet stream, which keeps all that arctic air bottled up. Then the negative phase which has a warmer stratosphere which allows for the polar jet to weaken and cold air can pour south. Well right now the stratosphere over the arctic is flipping from cold to warm which indicates that we have some blocking starting to begin, and that winter is about to begin.

This is confirmation that the arctic oscillation (AO) with be going negative. And that is what allows for arctic air masses to invade the mid-latitudes.

Now I am a bit obsessed with atmospheric and oceanic oscillation patterns. And this is my favorite blocking pattern of all, the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). When it is positive it's typically warm and dry across the eastern US and Europe. But when it's negative it means colder and wetter weather for both, and in the winter it usually signals coastal storms with snow. If both the AO and NAO are negative at the same time it has winter written all over it. And look at the NAO chart:

Oh yeah. This is the start of winter, and I see snow making opportunities up and down the appalachians and even natural snow by next week. Finally.

Only a week off :(

Well my "Mid-Month" that I was seeing on the models never really happened. But Ida, which the models missed completely did happen. That bad news is, that we have to wait a little longer for winter, but only about week and a half. Thanksgiving will really feel like winter, and it's all winter from then out... this is it

More Later On

Let's do a rewind

Well, the models did an absolutely horrible job on Ida. So much that in one day the models showed two feet of snow, inches of rain, and clear sunny skies. This lack of understanding effects every event that comes after, because now the pattern is totally different. It's like the Butterfly Effect, and that basically means that one little thing has a HUGE effect on the world around it. After the models caught onto this the mid-month trough that was consistently being shown disappeared completely.

Now, I keep hearing people say that this is the effect of El Nino. And they are simply wrong. The El Nino (which is weak by the way) is out in the western Pacific and is going to collapse sometime in January. It's not the reason why it's been so mild, and here is why. The Arctic Oscillation pattern typically needs to be negative for the cold air to move down into the mid latitudes, the cold air will have to wait a little longer. Perhaps in time for this years late Thanksgiving.

Let's give the models a few days a catch on to the upcoming pattern. Having the remains of Ida on the grid is not helping the accuracy of the long range. We are so close...

What a headache

Well as of right now I see no consistency in any of the models. Not only different models, but also the same models at different runs times. They are having such a hard time because of the tropical systems located in the Gulf of Mexico. Let's give the models a day to become more organized and be trust worthy. I see anything from a snowstorm at the end of the week, to sunny skies, to a warm rain event. That's how poorly the models are handling this. It's going to be a tough week...

First major snowstorm?

Don't be alarmed by the title, it got your attention though, didn't it? The 12z GFS has it on there and it's bring measurable snowfall Thursday-Friday. This wasn't on past runs, and I like to see consistency before I take a stand on anything.

Now as for my mid-month, the models have all but lost it for the past week now. But I know they are wrong, and todays 12z model finally has it back on there. More updates later tonight if the models become consistent.

Snowmap!

Well, this probably didn't deserve a snow map. But it does look like some light snowfall could occur over the highest terrain. The 1,000 foot mark is looking good for minor (very minor) snow accumulations. I normally wouldn't make a map as pointless as this but I'm getting excited for winter. Anyhow it's not a major storm so please don't get excited, not yet...

Snow and cold coming

One thing I have been talking about lately is a "mid" month arctic blast which will allows most resorts to open up early. Now that will happen around the 15th-19th, but let's talk about a closer event, one that yields more snow for the area.

This week a trough will dig into the northeast for the better half of this week and it will bring chilly, and yes snow. The snow flakes will indeed be flying in the air this week but it looks like southern New England and even into New York could be seeing the heaviest precipitation. The models keep tracking the system further and further inland, which would benefit us for accumulations. The trough will have a negative tilt and that is key in BIG snow, let's see if anything evolves out of this interesting situation...