Looking For Winter & a District 3 AAAA Football Championship

Over the last several days, I have been looking as to how we will snap out of our above normal pattern in terms of temperature and slide into winter.  Well, I do believe that winter type temperatures will be here by the middle of this upcoming week, possibly with just a tiny bit of wet snow followed by a siege of some very cold air from O Canada.  The Midwest and the Plains states will get their bout of winter early in the week with 2 storms that cut to our west.  This will allow for a few final days of above normal temps until the bottom drops out for us by next week.  Let me explain all of this with the use of our wonderful computer modeling and simulations.  The pic below is the Earth Science Research Lab (ESRL) in Boulder, Colorado.  Who wouldn't want to report their to work every day?  Earth Sciences and location...wow!

Here are the GFS ensembles showing that we will once again be above normal for the early part of this upcoming week.  KMDT is ~150 Heating Degree Days below normal to this point in the heating season.  Enjoy those savings since cold air is beginning to move.  Note the pool of cold over the desert SW.  That is the area of the storm formations that will ride up to our west and lay down some snowfalls over the plains early this week.

Here is a map of where the GFS believes the accumulations will occur by Wednesday.  Note the 3 areas of where I circled in LIME GREEN the places where storms will lay down the winter carpet.  The broadening swath up through NE, IA, and WI will be the most vigorous and begin to allow the cold air to advect south into the lower 48.  The model sees some very light accumulations in the Appalachians and into the Mid-Atlantic, but that will be more of a few flakes flying, but nonetheless, the temps are getting cold enough to support snowfall.

Once that 3rd wave passes off to our north and east, then the cold air will make in roads to PA by the end of this upcoming week.  Look at the raw anomalies first for our warmest weather this week...maybe the warmest for all of December...and then for the end of this upcoming week.  Here is Tuesday:

And by Thursday, below normal temps are prevalent over the entire country.

Then, by next weekend, the potential exists for the proverbial bottom to drop out!  Look at the -20ºF deviations from normal in the Ohio Valley poised to come at the Mid-Atlantic.  That most certainly can set the stage for some wintry type precip once that cold air gets established and begins to fall under attack from the warmer and more humid air that lurks down in the gulf!  By the way, normals for the middle of December for KMDT are ~41ºF and ~27ºF.  So as you can see, we've been above normal here of late, but most certainly feeling colder in the most recent days.  If the map below would verify, we'd be looking at daytime maxes struggling to reach the freezing mark!  Now that would be one cold smack in the face; reality check I like to call it!

Looking further into December, the picture gets a bit murky with the teleconnections of the AO, NAO, the PNA, the EPO, and the MJO all showing conflicting signs!  But here is the GFS ensembles for 372 hours or ~15 days hence.  This takes us out to one week prior to the visit from the big red dressed jolly old elf from the north country.  Note the cross polar component to the 500 mb heights.  This has the potential to be a very cold outbreak for mid and late month and energy use for the northern part of the country will be on the rise.  Again, natgas prices currently at ~$3.35/million BTU at the Henry Hub should gain ~$0.50/million BTU within a week as more and more weather forecasters see this cold air coming into play, especially for the energy mongers of the northeast US!  Again, disclaimer...any investments you make on my opinions are yours and yours alone!  Energy futures are extremely speculative and involve substantial risk!  The information that I provide or that is derived from this blog should not be a substitute for advice from an investment professional.  Smitty strongly encourages you to obtain personal advice from your professional investment advisor and to make independent analyses before acting on this information that I provide for entertainment purposes.  However, if you feel that you can make a buck or two in the energy markets; have at it!  Only you can determine what level of risk is appropriate for you.  

The map below is relatively new product known as the "Reforecast" project is constructed at the ESRL; Physical Sciences Division (PSD).  It has produced a dataset of historical weather forecasts generated with a the numerical models and has accounted for model errors and biases.  Therefore, the primary advantage with this "reforecast" dataset is that model forecast errors can be diagnosed and corrected, thereby dramatically increasing the forecast skill.  Although in its infancy, this type of reanalysis will greatly enable forecasters to gain further confidence as they peer more distantly into the future.  Look at the cold coming for the central and eastern US in the 8-14 day period!  And as the map shows above, will likely to continue towards Christmas Day!

OK...I've geeked long enough here.  Its just that...really...who needs cable TV with all of these outstanding products offered by NOAA.  I'm scared that Congress will cut funding to this scientific venture similar to what occurred at NASA!  But that will be a different rant for a different day...As for today, go Rams!  Listen, when you're playing high school football in December, you've got a good team!  Be aware your opponent is equally as competitive and we all know we are talking high school athletes; thus, just about any outcome is possible!  All the "Xs" and "Os" can't overcome some of the intangibles associated with the adolescent players.  Compete at a high level for 4 solid quarters of mistake free football and chances are fairly good that you live to play another week!  So tonight at Hershey Park Stadium (and the wx will be a non-factor...at kickoff at 6 pm:  ~39ºF, mostly clear skies, light east wind (towards press box)!), the AAAA District 3 champion will be crowned and here's hoping that the football AAAA trophy will be hoisted by Coach Mac and his troops!

Have a great week's end!

Smitty

AA:  After a mild couple of days, cold air will begin to invade PA.  We may see a few wet snowflakes at the onset of the colder air invasion Wednesday or so, but nothing to get excited about. Then it appears the cold will lock in for a couple of weeks.  Looking forward to the AAAA football D3 championship game at HP Stadium!