Weather Headlines
Thursday October 25, 2001
*** Powerhouse storm is about to exit. The coldest air of the season is
about to enter. A significant warm up will commence late in the period.***
     The "storm of the century", "Superstorm", or whatever you want to call
yesterdays event was over-hyped a bit in my opinion, but significant in
some respects. There were some large tornadoes in Northern Indiana and the
surface low pressure center had one of the lowest readings I have seen in
an October storm. Otherwise, it was a squall line of t-storms with a turn
to colder and windier weather, things we have certainly seen before and
will see again. The cold front should reach the Atlantic coastline later
today and another line of t-storms may certainly go up along it. We also
have some measurable snow in Minnesota this morning and could see "some"
lake effect snows through Friday. Once this storm is off the field, the
only inclement weather threats appear to be the PNW from a trough in the
Gulf of Alaska and in Florida from something tropical. I do not mean from a
named storm or hurricane, but merely that the disturbance originated in the
Caribbean. A large polar air mass has swept in behind this storm insuring a
drier and cooler than normal pattern from the Mississippi River and East
through the weekend. The Plains start to warm early next week is ridging
starts to evolve in response to troughing off the West Coast. Neither of
these features look particularly strong in the short term and overall
weather in the West has a benign look to it.
I don't have a lot of change from yesterdays 6-10 day outlook other than
advancing things by one day. Warming that kicks in for the Plains advances
East. Relative to normal this will be more pronounced initially in the
North than the South though by late in the period all will share. I
mentioned an atmospheric turnaround yesterday and still feel there is
potential by the middle of next week to become almost as warm as the recent
warm episode. The pattern remains progressive, but not as volatile as
recent weeks. Charts show another trough pushing through the Plains and
Eastern U.S. but it does not have the amplitude that the current one does.
Therefore, it can't tap the arctic air and bring it down. I have a fairly
high confidence level that the first week of November will be mild for the
nation as a whole.
For the period October 25 through October 29, expect the following
temperature trends:
Average 7 to 9-degrees below normal: Great Lakes,  Ohio and Mississippi
Valleys...
Average 4 to 6-degrees below normal: Plains, Northeast, Mid-Atlantic...
Average 1 to 3 degrees below normal: Gulf Coast, Southeast, Rockies,
Pacific NW...
Average 1 to 3-degrees above normal: California, Intermountain West, Desert
SW...
Unspecified areas will average close to normal...
Andy Weingarten, Meteorologist... APB Energy / True Quote Weather Desk