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.
Yesterday on my adventures across the northeastern part of PA, I was made keenly aware as to just how cold it has really been the last couple of weeks. In what amounted to a bright and sunny and somewhat "gorgeous" mid autumn day, I observed a vast smattering of residual snows from earlier in the week. Some of the snow was in deeper darker valleys while some sat vibrantly atop of peoples homes and roofs. Still other evidence was small piles of snow that were clearly plowed and pushed about making the snow that more difficult to fade away. All in all, it was impressive to see the evidence of the cold without a real snowstorm to deliver the true goods of a widespread snow event. In addition, many of the smaller ponds that I passed by were frozen over with a rather distinct layer of ice. Yes, it has been cold.
Which got me thinking early this Saturday morn. Just how cold? First, here is a graphic of the 1st half of November in terms of temperature anomaly for 2019 across the continental US (CONUS).
Contrast that with 2016, just 3 years ago! What a difference...
So what I decided to do was the following. Go back to 1981 and find the years where there was a cold starting November. Not just cold, VERY COLD. You see, over the last 39 years, this current year is FIVE standard deviations from the mean of that period. (Thanks to spreadsheets, that made this exercise a bit less laborious!) That's quite anomalous. So I found only 3 other years where the CONUS temps to this point were that far from the average. The last time November has been this cold to date was 1991...take a look...now that is darn cold!
Next, I used the Earth Science Research Lab plotting tool to map what the subsequent December, January, February, March period resembled in terms of temperatures. Since 1991 was such a large outlier, I triple weighted it as its SD was 3 times greater than 2019. Then I also just double weighted it and then simply single weighted that year. Here are the other years that were similar to this November: 1993, 1995, 2000. Drumroll...here are the results.
Triple weighted 1991:
Double weighted 1991:
Equal weighted 1991, 93, 95, and 2000:
The signal that emerges is a cold northeast and a warm northwest...So only time will tell, but a cold November does seem to portend a colder than normal winter here in the eastern and especially the northeastern US.
OK...we're off to walk the dogs, check out the latest and greatest fitness equipment at our newly constructed PF, then visit our precious granddaughter. Once all of the excitement eases, it's off to sling pork and sauerkraut for the annual Sauerkraut Supper. As a result, our hair will hold the scent of fermented cabbage for at least a day or two to come! Ha!
Go PSU and let's rebound from that hiccup called Minnesota!
I hope you enjoy this tune about November...
Smitty
AA: A cold November looks as if it may signal an upcoming colder than normal winter in these parts. I did the heavy lifting for you but I kinda like number crunching as you know.
As I sit here this glorious afternoon with an arctic air mass firmly in place over PA, it got me thinking as to how cold it truly is with this January air mass. My lovely bride and I were outside for most of the midday hours working around our humble abode, and when the sun even was even briefly obscured by the few clouds that were around, the air was certainly arctic in its properties! And this air mass will be reluctant to modify, but rest assured, it will. With this continental arctic air abutted juxtaposed with the warm oceans to our east, a booming baroclinic zone will create an avenue for storms to spin up and create a couple of coastal powerhouses! Now if this were a few weeks later into the season, the "Snowmageddon" term and ones similar would be flying high across the interwebs here in the northeastern region of the US...but it's a tad early for such nonsense. But I do believe that this pattern is prescience for what might be to come this winter. Please humor me and read on...
First our arctic air mass in place...KMDT reached a low of 22 this morning. 21°F was the record established back in 1911. No record but clearly cold for this time of year. The 1911 arctic blast was historical across the USA; a "Blue Norther" that caused many places in the midwest to drop 60°F within just a 12 hour period! Here were the temps this am...Brrrrr...the gray areas are below 0°F and for this time of year, darn cold! The dark blue "line" will be the storm track for the upcoming systems...
Now the winds are not an issue since the arctic origin high pressure is sitting right over us this afternoon! No worries with a big dome of high pressure here in these parts!
But this will lift off to the east allowing for slightly warmer and definitely air with more moisture to move towards the eastern part of the land mass. With the oceans still quite mild from the summer just past, there is a natural boundary for storms to spin up into rather significant systems that will likely hug the coast and deliver nasty gales to most of the eastern seaboard. We will see some precip, but the cutoff will be abrupt as the dynamics will be best directly near the coast. Take a look at the pressure come Sunday am...I see a map like that in January; high to the north with a storm in the south...uh,oh!
But this system will pull up along the coast far enough east to keep the harshest wx along the coast. Take a look at the max waves modeled with this puppy! Impressive!
And if one coastal is not good enough; how about that nasty looking cyclone modeled for the middle of next week just a few days later...986 mb...wow! Personally, I believe it will be a tad further west than shown here...
But Smitty, they aren't really having an impact on us. And I do believe that for the most part. But, if this is a persistent pattern that is setting up, buckle up for winter. Storms and rumors of storms will be the rule with a storm track like this...just sayin'...Personally, I could do without the white stuff as I age. A freshly fallen snow is stunning and pleasing to the eye but it is potentially problematic and even onerous to folks akin to me. For those of you who are hoping for a "white Thanksgiving"...here is the modeled snow through that day as per the GFS...this run says not very likely.
OK...I'm out. I hope many of you reading this got a chance to see Mercury cross the sun on Monday. A shout out to Mr. Reckner for providing the necessary tools to observe this relatively rare event; next Mercury transit is 2032! You want to see Venus take this path, that won't occur for another 92 more years! Oh well...if you missed Mercury the other day, here ya go...keep in mind, Mercury is about the size of our moon...
With the above video, this song came to my mind. I hope you enjoy as I have in the past many times over...and enjoy this cold November to date; a cold November often means a cold DJFM period in these pasts...just sayin'! And those of you who know me, I'm cold typing this right now! Ha!
Smitty
AA: It's darn cold for this early! I hope the parking lot is not taking its toll. The grass is done growing here; still nice and green but the mowing is done to be sure. BJ dropped a tree here and the brush clean up is now done. You do get warm twice when you heat with wood! Looks cold to cool for the next 2 weeks before a brief warming trend Thanksgiving week or there abouts. Then, I believe the cold will come and stay for the bulk of winter starting mid-December at the latest. Happy Thanksgiving my friend!
