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850mb temps Today to Thursday next week. Watch the Arctic back to back blasts next week. Watch how this weeks swings out, next one comes in and without a warm up.
They're forecasting the cold to be only mid and late January. February and March has a greater chance of being above average with El Niño.
Interestingly, one factor in this pattern reversal may have been brought about by an Icelandic storm that tugged above-freezing air to the North Pole between Christmas and New Year's Eve.
"The rapid and unexpected destruction of the tropospheric polar vortex, via the historically strong North Atlantic storm this week, has thrown a significant monkey wrench into the January forecast," said Crawford.
Specifically, the more "blocked up" the upper-level flow is in the higher latitudes, the more likely cold air is going to be forced south into the U.S. The stronger and more persistent the blocking, the longer the cold air will stick around.
Crawford said whether the colder East pattern relents later in January is uncertain, as upper-atmospheric blocking, such as is forecast for mid-January, often lasts longer than numerical models suggest.
The other potential change is that El Niño dissipates rapidly; something that happened in 1972-3 and 2009-10. In 1972-3, the normal El Niño February snowstorm(s) did not materialize. My pet theory is that El Niño's rapid decline throttled those storms. In 2009-10 El Niño declined rapidly as well, though a bit later. We still had the "Snowicane" on February 25, 26, 2010.
850mb temps Today to Thursday next week. Watch the Arctic back to back blasts next week. Watch how this weeks swings out, next one comes in and without a warm up.
Last edited by chicagogeorge; 01-04-2016 at 12:58 PM..
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I don't see any lows above 70 F for the next fifteen days.
