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Blog

Weather forecasting and analysis, space and historic events, climate information

Filtering by Category: Medium Range Outlooks

11:30 AM | Winter to take a bit of a break, but stratospheric warming ensures additional cold air outbreaks during February

Paul Dorian

One of the ways to monitor the potential for Arctic air outbreaks in the northern U.S. is to follow what is happening in the stratosphere over the polar region of the northern hemisphere. Sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) events are large, rapid temperature rises in the winter polar stratosphere occurring primarily in the Northern Hemisphere. They have been found to often set off a chain of events in the atmosphere that ultimately lead to Arctic air outbreaks from northern Canada into the central and eastern U.S. Indeed, there is stratospheric warming taking place right now over portions of the polar region and another significant warm up in the upper part of the atmospheric is predicted ten days from now.  This unfolding stratospheric warming event provides reason to believe that after a bit of a break in the winter weather pattern in the eastern U.S., cold air outbreaks will return in full force for much of February beginning as early as late next week.  

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categories Medium Range Outlooks
tags Featured

2:30 PM | *Next week's Arctic air to nearly extend from coast-to-coast*

Paul Dorian

This week’s Arctic air outbreak is only the opening salvo.  Old Man Winter was pretty embarrassed by his performance during December in the eastern half of the nation and is primed to make up for it with multiple Arctic blasts during the month of January and perhaps even considerably longer than that.  The overall weather pattern underwent a significant change around New Year’s Day from the record-breaking warmth of December in much of the eastern half of the nation and the end result will be much more in the way of sustained cold air outbreaks.  In fact, there are signs for widespread Arctic air next week with an initial shot arriving early in the week following a Sunday storm and then a reinforcing shot at mid-week.  By the middle of next week, colder-than-normal conditions will extend from virtually coast-to-coast.

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categories Medium Range Outlooks
tags Featured

11:45 AM | La Nina Update and its possible effects on our winter weather

Paul Dorian

Discussion

The latest Pacific Ocean sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly readings indicate that weak La Nina conditions (colder-than-normal) currently exist in the equatorial region of the Pacific. In the 2011-2012 Winter Outlook video (under Seasonal Forecasts) I discussed the likelihood of an “east-based”, weak-to-moderate La Nina during the upcoming winter season and I continue to favor that scenario. The difference between an “east-based” and a “west based” La Nina can be quite important with respect to winter temperature patterns in the Mid-Atlantic region. In short, an “east-based” La Nina typically leads to a colder nation, including the Mid-Atlantic region, compared to a “west-based” condition which often results in much warmer-than-normal winter weather in the eastern states. The latest information show that the most substantial cooling over the past 4 weeks (relative to normal) has occurred over eastern and central portions of the tropical Pacific and that should continue for the foreseeable future which favors the “east-based” scenario. As far as the strength of the La Nina signal is concerned, NOAA maintains an oceanic index that represents the 3-month running mean of SST anomalies where negative values indicate La Nina conditions. This index has now moved from -0.2 to -0.4 in the latest reading suggesting some strengthening of La Nina has recently occurred. In fact, I expect La Nina to strengthen a little bit more over the next few months with the oceanic index moving to between -0.5 and -1.0, but this is generally regarded as still in the weak-to-moderate range. We’ll continue to monitor and report on the Pacific Ocean cycles as well as on the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) over the next several weeks here at “thesiweather.com” since both are critical to winter weather conditions in the Mid-Atlantic region.

Video

httpv://youtu.be/qVQWQnDc-Rg

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categories NYC, PHL, DC, Medium Range Outlooks