Weather Headlines
Monday January 28, 2002
Summer-type ridge in the SE to get beaten down by approaching U.S. storm.
Trough to develop in the East turning the pattern to a normal to below
normal temperature regime.
We are looking at a deep trough in the West and strong ridge in the East on
this mornings weather maps. Dozens of record highs were set this weekend
from the Plains eastward while it was cold enough in the NW for snow in
Seattle. Things are on the move now which should end the warmth for most
areas by the end of the week. Relative to recent weeks, it certainly looks
a lot colder, but when one considers the time of year and steps back, well
most areas just don't get that cold. This looks to me to be the type of
situation where it will be colder in the Plains and then modify as it heads
East. This has a similar feel to what happened in late December. At the
moment, we are devoid of snow cover, so I have a difficult time getting too
pumped up over all of this. Speaking of snow, the Western U.S. system may
produce some moderate snows over the far North and Lakes as it pushes from
the High Plains NE to Canada. This does not appear to be a situation that
favors any East Coast winter storm development. Short term numbers will
still show warmth in the East, but that is a function of the next couple of
days. The Western and Central U.S. temperature departures are already below
normal and that trend will shift East later this week.
The 6-10 day period looks chilly, but hardly cold and also may be very
quiet. The SE ridge is replaced by a trough in the means so we should not
see the recent spring regime. The trend over the Western part of the
continent ( US and Canada) is for Pacific zonal flow. The real bitter cold
that has been in Canada the last several weeks should gradually modify. We
will likely see two distinct branches in the jet stream, an arctic branch
in the North and subtropical branch in the South. We get our big storms and
bitter cold outbreaks when they phase(come together). Most of the extreme
forecasts you see come together when this phasing occurs. I can not rule
out in the future, but it looks unlikely to me for now. To me the bottom
line for this period( and beyond) is for a slight cold bias East and a
close to normal look elsewhere.
For the period Monday January 28 through Friday February 1, expect the
following temperature trends:
Average 4 to 6-degrees below normal: Intermountain West, Desert SW,
California, Pacific NW...
Average 1 to 3- degrees below normal: Plains and Rockies...
Average 4 to 9-degrees above normal: Great Lakes, Mississippi Valley...
Average 10 to 15-degrees above normal: Ohio Valley, Mid-Atlantic,
Northeast, Gulf Coast, Southeast...
Andy Weingarten, Meteorologist APB Energy / True Quote