Our winter forecast was released to the public today. I want to comment first on the highlight map that our team put together. The area that is highlighted as "severe storms" is being misinterpreted. We are not talking about the severe storms that occur in Spring and Summer producing tornadoes, hail and wind damage. However, there can be severe weather at times with stronger systems along the Gulf Coast. But this area describes where one mean storm track sets up during the December through January time period, probably shifting slightly east in February. In this area, stronger areas of lower pressure can form along fronts leading to flooding rain, snow and ice which are severe weather events. Our team feels that a stronger than normal upper high will meander back and forth from the southwest Atlantic to the eastern Gulf which will force a storm track much of the time from Texas to the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes, plenty of inside cutters, especially in December into January. The central Plains and parts of the Midwest will have a greater chance for above normal snowfall, along with northern areas of the Great Lakes, upstate New York and northern New England. Our temperature trend in November is chilly to cold from the northern Rockies to the central Appalachians, warmer in the South and Southwest. Milder in December for much of the East if the upper high reaches full strengthen in the Southeast, stormy and colder in the Rockies into the Plains at times. Gradually colder air works out into the Plains, Ohio Valley and Tennessee Valley in January. Later in January or February, more frequent colder air masses reach the east driven by a eastward shift in the storm track. If the upper high holds, then the cold will hold back as well. The Rockies have been already hit hard and will continue to be hit hard early on in the season with snow and rain. The far West and Southwest could ease back in November, only to pick up again in December and January. During the week, I will add more things about this winter and what we are looking at. I will go into topics like source regions, colder or warmer than normal, Eurasian snowpack and the correlation to winter in the U.S., blocking, stratospheric warming, and analog years if we can get access to the page when the government settles on something.
Posted on: Wed, 09 Oct 2013 15:19:24 +0000
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