Weather Headlines
Friday February 1, 2002
The last of the warm air will be scoured out of the East today with near to
below normal temperatures for most of the country by early next week. A
very active Southern jet stream could spin up two more significant winter
storms through next weekend.
From the looks of the models today, the pattern is about as active as it
gets. Imagine the possibilities if only there was more cold air in the mix.
While brutal air is still not expected, the potential for winter farther
South is on the increase next week. We will see a temporary break from the
storminess over the weekend. The current storm now in Pennsylvania will
move out to sea and drive colder air into the region. A cool and dry
weekend seems to be shaping up for most areas, but a weak low will drop out
of Canada, across the Lakes and toward New England on Sunday. The current
storm will probably drive out most of the available moisture, but some lake
effect is possible so some light snow amounts should occur. The next
Pacific wave comes ashore in a fairly harmless fashion initially. However,
the set up looks favorable for some sort of Low pressure to develop in the
vicinity of the Gulf coast early next week. It would head toward the SE US
and could be an interesting factor. As far as temperatures go, the high
pressure over the Western Plateau (Colorado and Utah) is keeping that
region in a trapped cold air mass. The Plains will slowly modify from the
current shallow arctic air in place while the East undergoes a rather
pronounced cooling to near if not slightly below normal levels, a far cry
from the record highs of the past two weeks.
The 6-10 day period looks colder for the nation as a whole than recent
weeks. I still don't see us bringing in any real brutal arctic air, but the
SE ridge that has been in place for much of January is no more. In all
cases, the models suppress the storm track to the Southern U.S. which opens
the door to another potentially major winter storm, but quite a bit farther
South than the last one. The solutions are all over the place which one
would expect this far out. One aspect that struck me as noteworthy was the
Canadian's depiction of a large arctic high over the Northern U.S. It has
had it for three runs in a row, but given the high surface pressures does
not look as cold as I would have expected. It's just another product of a
strange winter I suspect. So, while I still am not in any kind of arctic
camp on this, I do believe the areas of above normal temperatures will be
very limited. I look for most areas to run near or slightly below normal.
For the period Friday February 1 through Tuesday February 5, expect the
following temperature trends:
Average 4 to 6-degrees below normal: Central and Southern Rockies, Southern
and Central Plains, Intermountain West, Desert SW, California...
Average 1 to 3-degrees below normal: Northern Rockies, Pacific NW, Ohio and
Mississippi Valleys...
Average 1 to 3- degrees above normal: Great Lakes, Northeast..
Average 4 to 6-degrees above normal: Mid-Atlantic, Gulf Coast, Southeast...
Andy Weingarten, Meteorologist APB Energy / True Quote