Before the winter season began all the teleconnection signals were there to suggest that this Winter would be a colder then normal winter and a snowier then normal winter.
Majority of the region had gotten off to a above normal snowfall thanks to a October 29th Pre Winter Historical East Coast snowstorm.
Since that time period snowfall has been hard to come by in the Mid Atlantic into the Northeast and this can be blamed on three things:
1. The polar vortex which has been centered over Alaska. We need this to be centered more to the east in south central Canada or North Central Canada.
2. Lack of blocking. There has thus far been no positive height anomalies over Greenland. This is again something needed for a cold and snowier winter.
3. Finally the Southeast ridge. This has been a permanent feature of the winter season of 2011-2012 so far.
Looking ahead we see nothing to suggest that this pattern that we have been in is going to change. Yes the GFS suggests its going to change but even that model which was bringing positive height anomalies into Greenland of + 4-+8 now shows negative height anomalies.
So lets look at the teleconnections to see if we can see any semblance of hope:
AO remains positive with no indication of going negative. The NAO remains positive with no indication of going negative. The EPO remains positive and does go negative at the very end of the ensembles. However..the PNA goes negative at the end as well.
In a nutshell the teleconnections suggest that there could be transient shots of colder air with the EPO going negative but with the PNA going negative majority of that colder air will be centered in the PNW..
So…with all the above said this is the outlook for the rest of the winter . For a different viewpoint read what Bobby Martrich from Lehigh Valley Weather Patrol sees for late winter ,but we have to go with what the overall pattern is suggesting and the teleconnections are showing! We hope this is a forecast we bust on!
No comments:
Post a Comment