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.
For today's excellent adventure, we will simply look at the the 850 mb level of the atmosphere in terms of the temperatures over the next 10 days. It behooves one to look at the atmosphere one mile above earth's surface as the effects of friction and other surface interactions are minimized in order to see how the atmosphere is cycling. Let's start with the 850 mb temperature initialization for the Euro from last evening...
Generally mundane cold across the eastern CONUS (Continental United States)...quite typical for this time of year. There are a few pools of colder air in the sea of mundane cold; namely by Lake Winnipeg and north central PA, i.e. "God's Country"! You'll also note a few patches of above freezing air in Quebec. Now look at how that evolves by Monday evening...
A general moderation in the temps due to zonal flow across the CONUS. That is not a very cold map for late December! But a careful eye will note in the very NW corner of the map, some colder air lurks. 24 hours later, voila...
An energetic diving jet drives the sub-freezing air all the way into central TX. On the east side of the trough, warm air is forced northward into New England and all of the way into Ontario and Quebec. This upper air configuration should allow surface temps to approach 60°F for Christmas Eve! Santa will only need his union suit when visiting the sub-tropics of KMDT this Christmas! Then by Christmas Day, the trough tilts negatively and will spin up quite a storm that will deepen over the Great Lakes. For us, it means a rainy and mild Christmas Eve followed by a vigorous frontal passage bringing a gusty Christmas afternoon with temps falling back to December-like levels...
Look at that 20°C air streaming up from the tropics towards Cape Hatteras! The atmosphere is in quite a tumult this Christmas...but it returns to normal for a day with WNW flow for Christmas Day.
But that poleward bulge over IL will be over the northeast one day later with a return to milder air, but not as warm as Christmas Eve. If we can get any sun...and we should...we will see temps in the mid 50s for Friday...
The cold front will traverse the state Saturday and usher in much colder air as we anticipate the coming of 2015...
...and by the end of the 10 days the Euro runs, cold looks to be the rule across the most of the US with what appears to be a steady stream of cold air plunging from the arctic into the CONUS...and likely to continue well into January...
Now I know we don't live at 850 mb, although I've met a few people in my life that thought they did! But as I mentioned earlier, it gives a good feel as to what the air wants to do and how the various air masses will move. Hence, an idea of the getting a good feel for the sensible surface weather can be attained...I hope that makes sense to y'all.
As usual, I'll leave you with a little musical wish...
Enjoy your week's end and your Christmas week!
Thanks for reading!
Smitty
AA: Monitoring the air flow a mile up to see the cold moderate to a very mild Christmas Eve. Then one blustery colder Christmas Day followed by another couple of milder days. Then the bottom drops out early next week! Merry Christmas my friend!
...and all through the meteo house
All the numerical models were buzzin'
With the solutions all loused!
Sorry for that...
What numerical turmoil. There is so much energy that is diving into the eastern half of the continent that the modeling is frankly all over the place in terms of how this will play out in terms of the sensible weather! My oh my, this is a tricky call...especially for the impact of the timing of this MAJOR EVENT! I mean, look at that crazy prog from WPC from 6 days out...very complex to say the least!
Gut feeling at this time; limited precip (less than 1"; mostly wet not white here) with much wind! Cold for after Christmas with mostly cloudy conditions. But without all of the features yet to be sampled over the continent, the modeling is struggling greatly to hone in on a solution. Take the Euro for example...here it is 24 hours apart for the same time frame...looking at the 500 mb level.
Today...
Yesterday at the same time...
To many, I'm sure it looks largely the same. However, the trough was much deeper and further west than the run today. In fact, that has major implications for the surface features. Here is today's surface map from the Euro for Christmas Eve...
But yesterday's run had an Edmund Fitzgerald type storm heading for the Lakes!
It will be interesting to see how this all pans out. The meteorology this fall and early winter has been quite interesting. How many cyclones have come our way and then sat and spun over the Gulf of Maine for like what seems an endless eternity of clouds and gloominess. Couple that with solar winter (lowest sun angle and least amount of sun time) and the winter blahs are running prevalent without the big one! The Euro does build a glacier to our north by next weekend! Wow...
The GFS has the glacier further west... (a warmer solution to be sure, too)
You can clearly see similarities between the 2 premier models. The major takeaway for me is that there is not much white here in southern PA around KMDT. But this pattern is ripe with promise! There will be a major phasing storm next week in the eastern 1/3 of the US...of course the devil is in the details as is always the case in terms of the necessary cold air aloft to create a snow event for KMDT. The depth of the trough suggests cold is near; but it would be nice to have a large high to our north where there are none to be found. So I'm still looking for a green Christmas in these parts, but not nearly as warm as I would've thought yesterday with what was to be a major cyclone over central Ontario. I'm sure tomorrow afternoon will give us something different again...like some sunshine! Enjoy it as it will be hard pressed to locate once past Saturday!
OK, I've rambled enough...enjoy this Christmas ditty! It should get you movin'!
Smitty
AA: Tough call for Christmas Eve and Christmas. Still thinking wet; not white. And much cooler than what I thought yesterday.
As I sit here and tickle these keys with our advent wreath adorning our table, 3 candles afire, traditional Christmas music playing in the background, I too dream of a white Christmas. However, it seems to not be in the cards; not for this year. In fact, it might just get quite mild in these parts prior to the arctic opening up on PA. In fact, a white New Years Day is looking more and more likely. Remember, living here in the sub-tropics, a white Christmas is climatologically not a very frequent event. Take a look at this graphic...
If you would've asked me a few days back, I thought the probability was pretty good...over 70% as I believed cold would hold after a healthy snow event for this upcoming weekend. However, that system will simply progress off the east coast too far south from our area to have much of an impact. The map below shows the greatest precip for a 3 hour period as per the GFS this weekend...maybe enough to get the ground white...at best! A few flakes Saturday night is the most likely outcome...but come to think of it, aren't there always a few flakes Saturday night?
But a major...and I do mean major storm will phase and drive warm air up the coastal plain for Christmas Eve into our region...look at this cyclone!
Here's the warmth being advected northward thanks to this massive storm...the map shows temps above normal in degrees F. I wonder what the heck is happening around Cape Hatteras?
However, the bottom will drop out a few days later with some serious cold coming straight down from the north pole! Take a look at this! Note the streamlines! Now our air will take the scenic route through the Dakotas and MN, but still a real change of air mass for the day after Christmas.
And that serious cold remains until New Years Day...and by the looks of the climatological modeling, as far as the numerical eye can calculate! So I'm sorry to bring disappointing news as I know many of you like the prospects of having a white Christmas...but if you are a lover of snow, cold and winter wx in general, I believe the weeks following Christmas will not disappoint! With that said, maybe this song will be appropriate for us this Christmas living here in KMDT; aka the sub-tropics! Well, maybe a stretch...but...just saying! Enjoy!
Thanks for reading!
Smitty
AA: Typical Decemberish weather through the weekend. Near miss with storm Sat night off to the south. Not real strong either! Big storm to our west Tuesday makes Christmas Eve and Day above normal with temps...then the cold is comin' in spades...and hearts...and diamond...and even clubs!
