Weather Headlines
Thursday January 10, 2002
It still appears we will lose the unseasonable warmth in the Plains this
weekend, but the true arctic remains bottled. Models tone down any East
Coast storm for the weekend and show signs of shifting a trough into the
West.
A cold front will push through the Northern Plains ending the record warmth
of recent days. But, I still do not see any brutal cold heading into the
region in the short term(and longer) so numbers will continue on the warmer
side of normal. This warm air continues to spread out to the East and
slowly redeveloping to the South as well. Weak to moderate weather systems
will traverse the Plains and East with light amounts of rain and snow,
nothing significant here. A stronger system crashes into the Pacific NW
this weekend only to fall apart into the Great Basin high that has been
anchored the last couple of weeks. My five day numbers for temperatures
remain above normal almost coast to coast though again the Plains will be
cooler than recent days.
The NWS 6-10 and 8-14 day outlooks continue to indicate some cold air
potential. I continue to disagree on the magnitude and southward extent. As
I mentioned yesterday, they can verify correctly if you are one degree
below normal as their forecast is a probability scheme. I can't totally
rule out some arctic air in the normally frigid northern U.S. this time of
year, but current patterns and charts convince me it would be extremely
difficult to send this air very far South. The MRF and its ensembles remain
in the camp of a trough East and ridge holding in the West. The European
and Canadian models hint in the 6-10 day period of a pattern reversal with
more of a trough in the West and ridge in the East. This ridge would not
have near the amplitude of the one that produced the record warm November
and December, but it would effectively choke off any cold air East of the
Mississippi. I think the European/Canadian combo has done a much better job
than the MRF this year and may be a believable solution. The one change it
does result in though is an opportunity to drive some cold air into the
sparsely populated areas of the Interior NW and Rockies.
For the period Thursday January 10 through Monday January 14, expect the
following temperature trends:
Average 1 to 3-degrees below normal: Florida?
Average 1 to 3-above normal: Southeast, Pacific NW...
Average 4 to 6-degrees above normal: Gulf Coast, Mid-Atlantic, Southern
Plains and Rockies, Desert SW, California, Intermountain West...
Average 7 to 10-degrees above normal: Northeast, Great Lakes, Ohio and
Mississippi Valleys?
Average 11 to locally 20-degrees above normal: Central and Northern
Rockies, Central and Northern Plains...
Andy Weingarten, Meteorologist APB Energy / True Quote