Here Comes Winter

Ready or not...here I come!  That will be the call of old man winter once he finishes his countdown in about 4-5 days!  Not that this morning is anything to sneeze at in terms of temps.  With climatology suggesting lows around ~40ºF, take a look at these current temps over our region.  It is a nice sky out there right now with a waning gibbous lying right next to Aldebaran, the eye of the bull Taurus!

By the way for you sky-gazers out there, the moon will slowly progress eastward through the zodiac this week and by next weekend will have a nice conjunction lying below the "backwards question mark" and in conjunction with Jupiter in the constellation of Leo!  Pretty cool...if you see it...though I should say pretty COLD as per the purpose of this post.

You see, by mid week, the upper level pattern will be so convoluted that the coldest air relative to averages will be in SE O Canada just to our north here in PA.  You WILL hear talk of the now infamous "Polar Vortex" diving towards the US once again.  This upper level flow regime is being powered by some tropical energy injected way out in the Bering Sea by the phasing of tropical heat/humidity and the polar jet to create quite a surface monster...take a look!  This is the GFS' initialization from 7 pm last evening...931 mb cyclone!  Wow!

This will send upper level ridging into eastern AK which will in turn drive a trough of lowering heights southwards towards the middle continental US with the lowest heights (coldest/densest air aloft air) lying between James Bay & Lake Superior by Sunday evening.

This will allow warmth to advance ahead of this through the northeast Monday and Tuesday.  In fact, if all goes well, Veterans Day should be a rather warm day (70ºF ?? for KMDT anyone, anyone?)...maybe the warmest until next spring the way I see this pattern evolving over the next several weeks.  But in the same graphic, note those 26ºF below seasonal norms lurking in the northern plains...getting ready to advect east around the base of the ominous PV!

You can also see above the warmth in AK, but the arctic chill building over most of O Canada.  That occurs when the snow cover over the northern hemisphere is near record coverage for this time of year since such types of records began to be kept.  Take a look...this map valid Nov 7, 2014.

Here is a table showing both Oct and Sept having the 3 most snow cover in the northern hemisphere for 2014...snow breeds snow and cold!  So...uh...Al...how's the globally warmed Arctic Ice Free ocean doing?  Just asking...

By the way, the winter of 1976 was a doozy (for those of you who remember) when the greatest amount of snow cover was recorded.  The graphic below from the Earth Science Research Lab indicates what that winter (actually the plot I choose was the cold months of November to March 1977) brought in terms of temps....brrrr....

I remember watching "Roots" in January of 1977 with the lead news breaks at the top of each hour warning of Natural Gas shortages and a major spike in NatGas prices due to the severe arctic outbreaks we were experiencing over repeatedly beginning in November 1976.  I was also skating on Silver Lake prior to Christmas 1976 thanks to the unleashing of the arctic hounds!  Now this "cat" doesn't look too threatening...

Sorry I digress...anyway...most of the US and O Canada will be much below norms come later next week as you can see...

In fact, the snow word will begin to be mentioned...but that is a different story for a different day.  I just wanted to give you a "heads-up" that this glancing blow of cold yesterday and this morning is simply a precursor of things to come.  Take a look at the snow cover progged by the Euro by the end of a 10 day period...a bit early don't cha think! Snow into NORTH TEXAS!  C'mon man...The snow cover located in lee of the Great Lakes and the higher ground/interior of the eastern US looks reasonable to me, however.  Time will tell...

OK...I've been wordy enough...I think you get the picture...but if not...Sting can help...enjoy!

Smitty

AA:  Cold this am..."normal Sat-Sun", mild Mon-Tues...then winter comes a knockin' into the foreseeable future.