JOESTRADAMUS: Long Range Forecast: Weather Models Showing Not Much Change Next Few Weeks.
This is has been a very frustrating period in the long range which has been El Nino dominated especially in the last couple of weeks. The last several runs of weather models have been trying to show some signs of change and we will take you through some of those changes. The NAO is in positive mode right now and forecast to stay positive for the next week or so however the last few runs have been pointing to the NAO going back to neutral and then to negative later in the month. Remember this is one indicator and not necessarily the magic bullet for colder weather lovers. However it does change the complexion of the atmostphere IF it is right for the second half of the month. I have my doubts. Today’s day run has now flipped away from that idea and shows an overall look that still has an el nino feel to it. The cold flow into Canada is confined to northern areas and there is no alley way to bring it down through the next 2 weeks. The graphic is the ensemble NAO forecast from last night’s run which shows it going negative later this month and probably beyond the next 16 days. We will see what the ensembles show later today.
One of the beautiful things about going back to standard time is that we get the models an hour earlier and that makes things more reasonable for me at night when I get home from FiOS1 News and can see the European by 1:30am. This will be great for those early morning posts. The GFS has a weather system moving across the US next weekend.
Ok back to the long range. The upper air for next weekend has more activity on it but you can see the signature when the NAO is positive. The cold air flow in Canada stays north near the poles because the vortex there is stronger. The ridge in the Aleutians effectively cuts of the polar flow into Western Canada and we have Pacific air coming in there. There is no real true polar connection with this set up. Colder air masses that do come in bring temperatures back down to normal or perhaps a little below after fronts go by.
Beyond whatever short term implications all this means we will deal with that in subsequent posts. In the meantime jumping to day 10 it still looks pretty much locked into el nino dominated warm mode where. The signature here is also of a strongly positive North Atlantic Oscillation index. The polar vortex is near the poles and there is absolutely no flow from Northwest to Southeast Canada. The flow across Southern Canada is basically westerly with Pacific air dominating the flow south of 40 degrees north.
Short term the week ahead looks warm with temperatures reaching 70 or better on a couple of days this week. The next front is due late Friday and it does look colder over the week but nothing extraordinary. Today’s gfs stalls the front and makes a wave on it which might mean some rain. Im not going to get worked up over this right now. There is nothing in today’s run which says big storm of any kind.
JOESTRADAMUS HAS HIS WINTER FORECAST WHICH WILL BE OUT AT 7:30PM EST THIS EVENING!!!!!