Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
[quote=psurangers11;37187903]There has been so much activity already and it's just early November.... this is setting up to potentially be a loooooooong loooooooong winter.
Maybe things don't pan out the way many would like... but I have a gut feeling there will be many, many potential storms that we'll all get to follow and discuss.
It's the most....... wonderful time oooooooof the yeeeeeeeeear...
lol
Yes it is. I hope we have as much snow as we did last winter I just bought new snow pants.
I'm jealous of anyone who lives east of the Rocky Mountains! California isn't going to see much of this cold air, and especially not Southern California. The real irony? I'm going to visit my dad and stepmom in Florida this weekend, and it should be nice there as well - probably in the mid-80s! I have to go through Dallas to get there; I'm just crossing my fingers that I won't need to leave the airport for any reason, because I'm only taking a sweater and a very thin windbreaker!
All of the charts and analysis are fascinating! I love weather (and yes, I'm living in the wrong part of the country!).
Even a big chunk of land west of the Rocky Mountains will be getting some early season action, including Seattle and Portland! A cold wave spanning from Seattle to Atlanta is not something you see every year, especially weeks before Thanksgiving, although judging by recent years that seems to be changing .
Even a big chunk of land west of the Rocky Mountains will be getting some early season action, including Seattle and Portland! A cold wave spanning from Seattle to Atlanta is not something you see every year, especially weeks before Thanksgiving, although judging by recent years that seems to be changing .
Yeah the extent of this cold blast is insane. When is the last time the entire country was in the path of an arctic outbreak? The only areas not affected look to be Florida and the Southwest.
Yeah the extent of this cold blast is insane. When is the last time the entire country was in the path of an arctic outbreak? The only areas not affected look to be Florida and the Southwest.
Searching last year's thread yielded an arctic outbreak of similar extent from early December 2013. Cold waves of that extent are rare in that part of the world, at least until recently. This whole discussion also seems familiar, as in a lot like last November only two weeks earlier. Since everything can change, that doesn't mean that 2014-15 will be a replay of 2013-14, but what it does mean is that for those wanting a long, cold, stormy winter it's "so far, so good", which is far better than what those who loathe such a season could say.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Patricius Maximus
Check out these departures from normal for today - with the exception of the South Atlantic the entire lower 48 is colder than normal, and furthermore most of the landmass is >20F below normal. You can see clearly the scope of this cold wave as well as the apex of it, which is in the deep interior. The cold barely made it to the East Coast, but once you go west of the Appalachians it is cold everywhere:
11" in St Augusta Minnesota!
9" Murdock, MN
6" Monticello, MN
Those are temps, not wind chills!
So far, so good. If this pattern keeps up for the rest of the winter...er, fall and winter, a lot of my ilk will be happy campers. If you have any doubt of the rarity of the cold regime many Americans are currently entering observe how references to "winter" or "the rest of winter" outpace "fall" or "the rest of fall"; the reason is that this cold front will (by American standards) end fall-like weather and usher in winter-like weather far earlier than usual, perhaps one of the earliest starts to winter on record.
TWC's forecast highs for Little Rock, Arkansas over the next ten days are 71, 61, 50, 45, 49, 47, 46, 43, and 49. Their average this time of year is 63, so it's much below normal, but what's truly shocking is that their January average is 51, so they will be receiving weather in the middle of November that would be considered significantly below normal in the middle of winter. Most of Tennessee is currently forecast by TWC 5 days out to get snow or a mixture of rain and snow on the 15th. It takes a strong signal to have such an unusual event to be consistently shown in the official forecasts that far out:
Nashville's forecast highs for the next ten days are 66, 66, 51, 41, 41, 47, 45, 38, 38, and 44. They average 60 in November, so they'll be even further below normal than Little Rock, but they average 47 in January, which means they will also be in a pattern that would be considered cold even in the middle of winter, but happening well before Thanksgiving. Model output is consistently showing a few highs around freezing for that region, so I expect official forecasts will adjust those temperatures even lower as the date approaches as the usually do in these situations. As if that wasn't enough, one GFS run even had most of Kentucky with a sub-20F high a few days before Thanksgiving, and no recent model I've seen shows any hint of a pattern change or even much weakening in the cold pattern up to Thanksgiving. Most of the run-to-run differences in temperatures are due to snowpack differences, so currently it looks like for the middle of the country the remainder of the month will be similar to the next week, and it looks like there is a good chance for historic cold weather and early snowfall.
Of course, the biggest question is will this continue into December and January, and that cannot be answered at this point. The huge snowpack, associated cold air buildup, the stormy and winter-like pattern to date, and the demonstrated steering of cold air into North America so far would suggest to me that if any cold pattern asserts itself this winter it will be a severe one. Just look at what's happening now as soon as the pattern became conducive to snow and cold.
Yeah the extent of this cold blast is insane. When is the last time the entire country was in the path of an arctic outbreak? The only areas not affected look to be Florida and the Southwest.
Exactly! While some temps will "just be chilly" and the departures only 10-15 below normal look at this airmass dropping down. WTF.
This is one impressive looking airmass. You don't see this in November often.
While you do see -10 to -20° temps at the 4000' level ITS NOT WIDESPREAD like this. This is nuts.
We would be lucky to pinks inside a trough near the Canadian border.
Reason why you see snow returns in Colorado under the green (5-10C) is because this is at 4-5k feet. That snow is above this level where its below freezing. Freezing line in cutting across New England now.
Pink line pretty much the arctic boundary right now
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The real irony? I'm going to visit my dad and stepmom in Florida this weekend, and it should be nice there as well - probably in the mid-80s! I have to go through Dallas to get there; I'm just crossing my fingers that I won't need to leave the airport for any reason, because I'm only taking a sweater and a very thin windbreaker! 
