Smitty's attempt to educate and to a much lesser extent, entertain, about all facets of life; but primarily the meteorological and the climatological aspects of the earth sciences.
Although not yet passed whilst I'm tickling my keyboard, November 2018 will go down as one of the colder Novembers in these parts with ~2.3°F below the 30 year mean per day. This basically means the entire month felt like it was more like the last week of November for the entire month! And although this weekend the mercury may touch 60°F on Sunday if the sun can make an appearance, it will be back into the freezer again with even the potential for wintry precip once again. This colder than normal November has laid down a nice winter carpet and will only continue to reinforce cold air masses intruding from the land of Nunavut. Please humor me and allow me to explain...
Here is the winter carpet to which I alluded...
Now the temps to date for November...this does not include November 30...the only real warmth being where the fires were ravaging CA as well as the Pac NW and FLA...it was quite cold in the nation's heartland!
And the past daily temp range for here in KMDT for this past month...note the trend to much colder days from the beginning of the month...And very little time spent in the red; much more in the normal green and below normal blue...Thanksgiving and Black Friday were anomalously cold!
Just in case you're wondering about year to date...I'll include it here...we are about spot on for the year; how the heck did that happen?
However, the upcoming period from about next Wednesday to the following Monday do look rather intriguing to me. First the true arctic cold to come visiting once again in a tad stronger fashion this go 'round. The graphic below shows the anomalous chill centered on next weekend. Remember, these are in °C so essentially double the below normal temps at 1 mile up. Bottom line, warm in Alaska will displace the cold to the arctic slide...not to be confused with the electric slide!
And with the cold in place, a couple of winter wx events are certainly in the cards. Although 10 days out, the upper air progs from the Euro has been very consistent and the pattern is such there is likelihood of yet another early winter snowfall event that can be fairly impactful for our region. Here is what the model suggests...please understand this is 10 days hence...but to be sure, this has the potential to be a wintry pattern for the next 2 weeks.
OK...gonna roll to the weekend. But I'll leave y'all with one I'm certain I've played many times before at this point in the calendar. Joni Mitchell penned this tune and I absolutely love Sarah McLachlan's rendition of the ditty. My lovely bride turned me onto Sarah's Christmas album several years ago and it remains one of my favs for the season. I hope you enjoy as much as I...
Smitty
AA: A potentially wintry pattern after a brief warm-up this Sunday. Buckle up for what has the potential to be a snowy winter if this pattern doesn't change!
