November 14th, 2016

Today’s Discussion:

I have not updated as often as I had, due to 2 things: 1) Very busy and 2) Not much going on. This weather so far for November has been nothing short of spectacular. Mild afternoons. Cool overnights. Nearly all sunny days. With less than 1/3rd of an inch in precipitation, we are getting dry. The surface is OK, but the ground water and stream flow is really low for this time of year. Great weather = dry weather. 

Could a change be coming?  Yes, but will that lead to more rain?  In theory yes. 

Our step by step change in the weather pattern over North America is occurring.

Monday should be sunny with some clouds late as a very weak area of low pressure develops along the east coast and moves up the coast. It should spread some mainly light rain into our area for Tue.

Wednesday into Saturday looks rather nice and on the mild side. We may push 60 or higher by Friday or Sat as a short-term ridge moves in from the west, however the first real fall storm will be crossing the nation late next week.

This storm will likely result in severe weather across the central states from the Great Lakes on south, some wet heavy snow in the Northern Plains and some showers for the northern half of the east coast next Sunday. This storm is yet another sign of pattern changing. Some true cold air will move in behind the system.

​We have been very dry, and the next 7 days do not appear to be all that wet either. Although the upper level pattern is shifting step by step … the lack of storms and moisture has my attention. Again, I think the storminess will appear, but time will tell.  

Explanation of maps below: 

1. Top Map is the current map as of early Monday morning 11/14
2. Bottom map is the forecast for early Wednesday morning 11/30. 
3. A two week forecast is to be taken with a grain of salt, but a general concept can be seen. 
4. Notice on top map that the red "L"s dominate to our north through Canada and Greenland/Arctic, while blue "H"s dominate the USA. 
5. Now notice on the bottom map that there are more "H"s in Canada/Greenland/Arctic and more "L"s in the USA. 

This illustrates the idea of the US getting stormier. If this occurs, Canada will grow colder and that cold will be supported by high pressure (blue H). This leads to colder weather for US, however, models and humans are typically too fast with major pattern changes. Computers rush it, and people are impatient. So just based on that I do not expect to see "winter" lock in until mid December (which is fairly typical by the way).