Weather Headlines
Wednesday November 21, 2001

*** Battle develops between tropical ridge in the Atlantic and Arctic air
flooding Canada. The Atlantic ridge will prevail? for now.***

     A series of weather systems will move into the West Coast and head
East through the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. While the pattern will be
more active than recent weeks, no one big storm is likely to bring travel
problems on a large scale. In addition, there is little additional cold air
available to spin up a Winter Storm, so most precip will be in the form of
light to moderate rain. Exceptions to this will be the mountains of the
West where ski resort snows will fall. Also, the far Northern reaches of
the U.S. could see some light snows. Temperature departures are expected to
go largely above normal again with the highest numbers in the North, though
not to the degree of earlier in the month. Negative numbers though not
significant are confined to the West where storms come in off the ocean and
in the Southeast where this time of year is not cold anyway.

     Models are going wild with a winter storm early in the 6-10 day
period. I suspect surface pressures are a little overdone given the upper
level flow. However, the Gulf will be open and some significant moisture
and wind are possible. The storm track will be well North which confines
snow to the Northern U.S. Significant winter weather though from Wyoming to
Minnesota is possible. The large scale pattern ending November will be for
a trough to sit in the Interior West while a strong ridge exists over the
Southeast.  There is still plenty of arctic air available in Canada, but
with the jet stream in a broad West to SW flow, no means of delivery appear
available until at least December 1'st. In a general sense, I look for
temperatures to be below normal in the West with above normal in the South
and East. The North is somewhat a question mark being closer to the arctic
air and could go either way. I'll lean to normal for now.

For the period Wednesday November 21 through Sunday November 25, expect the
following temperature trends:

Average 1 to 3-degrees below normal: Gulf Coast, Southeast, Mid-Atlantic,
Pacific NW?

Average 1 to 3-degrees above normal: Ohio and Mississippi Valleys, Great
Lakes, Southern Plains, California, Desert SW?

Average 4 to 6-degrees above normal: Rockies, Intermountain West, Central
Plains?

Average 7 to 10-degrees above normal:  Northern Plains?

Andy Weingarten, Meteorologist  APB Energy / True Quote