Will February Offer Winter's Worst?

Well, it just might start off with a deep snow pack and not go anywhere soon if you believe the afternoon run of the Euro!  The on again, off again Euro has another system staying south of PA and delivering an appreciable snowfall midweek next week.

A foot of snow followed by a 4"er on the weekend!  Couple that with some brutally cold air once again invading the eastern half of the US!  After a brief thaw this weekend with merely a dearth of precip, the fun and games of winter's worst could start later next Tuesday!  Sub-zero air is very possible if the deep snow pack is intact with polar vortex III!

And here is the upper air anomaly (500 mb heights) for next Thursday!  Cold to invade once again!

And the confidence of this is relatively high since both the Euro and the GFS have been hinting at several waves moving from the southern plains off the Mid-Atlantic coast as arctic air remains strongly entrenched over our region.  First the Euro for next week...note the relatively weak low over NW 'Bama.  This is Wednesday am...

Now the GFS has a similar solution albeit 24 hours earlier and a touch further west...

But the point to be taken is that both of the global resolution models are seeing a very similar set-up; low pressure with gulf moisture attacking the arctic high in place over the northeast!  Buckle up baby!  Many times over the years we see this type of overrunning quickly slam the Lower Susquehanna Valley and then end as a little freezing drizzle making everything outside a complete winter wonderland! I'll not bore y'all with the critical thicknesses, but precip types will run the gamut in and around our area! But its not done after that as the Euro shows another low pressure off the east coast (the GFS does too) but here is the Euro...

But that is a different story for a different day!  So will February make you shiver like Don McLean?  American Pie; the song not the movie!  But if you can handle the cold while glancing at the sky this evening with a New Moon not obscuring your star gazing, you'll see a starry, starry night...also a fav from Don McLean!  Enjoy!

And enjoy your Thursday!

Smitty

AA:  I'm concerned February will be the stormiest of the brutal winter of 2013-14!  The cold is almost a given!  This is a compilation of the last 7 runs for the month of February for surface temps... Take a look! That's another brutally cold month ahead if this verifies!  Bundle up your little ones!

I Had To Laugh!

I often wonder from time to time that maybe I should be a bit more cautious with my words, gestures, and mannerisms in my daily interactions with the people whom I associate.  Well, none hit harder than just a few hours back when I got a very welcoming request to express my concern of a major snow event next week!  I was simply expressing to a friend of mine that the pattern is ripe for a major storm in the eastern US and that the Euro (which by the way has done quite poorly in North America this winter to date) showed in its operational run a crippling snow event for mid next week.  Here...take a look...

Now, few of you know this, but I look at the models and their runs EVERY SINGLE DAY!  Frankly, I wish I had more time to devote to analyzing the runs and the verification thereof, but educating the youth of America is my bread and butter so to speak...so I am not afforded the time to dedicate to deeply analyzing said model runs.  But this Euro run was an anomaly for its "Deterministic"; however, the ensembles have been fairly rock solid with some wintry precip next week.  Here, look at the afternoon graphic...just a bit different...

Now the ensembles approach 8" by day 10 and the "Deterministic" is a paltry 4" event.  But one thing I'd like to let y'all know is that both the GFS and the Euro are in fairly good agreement that next week will turn most decidedly stormier and with the arctic air staunchly entrenched, well...watch out for winter to rear its ugly head once again!

The timing isn't necessarily there as of this evening, but the GFS paints a rather wintry time next week as well after a "sloppy warm-up" in the form of snow, sleet, and freezin' rain along with some plain rain this week's end...but not too much.  However, when scoping the 500 mb Euro ensembles for a 5 day mean...just trying to hone in on the synoptic pattern, a battle ground is developing across the middle of the US...mostly the SE and the northern tier.

Above is the mean of the next 5 days.  Note the "white region" is primarily the true area where the fight will be.  But one also has to understand this is a five day mean which is an average position of the battle ground.  Anyplace within 200 miles of that area is bound to have some precip.  And based on climatology, for us in KMDT, wintry types of precip are likely.  Here is the 5 day mean 10 days out..."Bermuda ridge" trying to fight back against the Arctic Attack.  Good luck there!  Hey...how's that Global Warming working out for y'all this past month?

I'm not even going to go out beyond day 10 because it just gets plain old ugly cold ....AGAIN!  Well, on 2nd thought, here is the GFS out to day 15...another visit from the land of Nunavut!  

Accompanied by ample precip...here is the precip anomaly valid through the 1st week of February...

OK...enough for now.  I must consult with my underground informer for further updates...

The last thing I will leave y'all with is while I was writing this, I was listening to some good tunes from Bruce recorded on an album known as "The Seeger Sessions".  Pete Seeger performed this song in 1964 at the Newport Folk Festival to expose the song into a more mainstream recording. So I thought I'd share one of my favs off of that album in honor of Pete Seeger who left this world yesterday...

OK...gotta run and listen to our leader on the State of this Union.  But who knows...maybe I'll listen to some more Bruce since he is more engaging to me at this point...

Enjoy your cold mid-week...and oh, by the way, in case you didn't realize, its been COLD! ~20ºF below the norms...wow!  But warm in AK and CA and Greenland!  Ok...going now...

Smitty

AA:  It's been cold...next week it will get wintry again.  Long term...staying wintry and cold...and likely stormy!  Looking forward to baseball season!  I've officially become an Orioles fan!