4 January 2015

The Dogs of Winter Are Getting Ready To Howl!

Posted by Dan Satterfield

The coldest air of the winter is about to head into the Midwest and NE U.S. over the next few days. A 1058 millibar high pressure is going to drop into the Plains starting Monday and by Thursday morning, temperatures will fall below zero as far south as Southern Indiana and Pennsylvania. The images below are from a new experimental model run that NOAA is working on to improve their global long-range forecast model. It has much higher resolution and has been doing a good job. It is tracking very closely to the currently preferred ECMWF model run in London, which is the current fave of synoptic forecasters world-wide (including me).

click for full resolution. These are lows Thursday morning.

click for full resolution. These are lows Thursday morning.

The image below shows how far below normal these temperatures are; Nearly 40 degrees below average in some areas! The cold will come with some heavy snow in the Great Lakes as this cold Polar airmass crosses the yet unfrozen waters.

image ctsy. WX Bell.

image ctsy. WX Bell.

There are strong signs that after this week the pattern will relax, and the cold air will be locked up in the high Arctic again. That said, there have been some signs of what is called a “Sudden Stratospheric Warming Event” that could cause another outbreak soon. I am not totally buying some of the claims that one is imminent just yet.

More on SSWE’s soon.

PS- This is NOT THE POLAR VORTEX! It’s just an outbreak of cold Arctic air…in January. Breathe deep and put on a good coat and gloves.