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.
As we head into Thanksgiving week, our memorable November snow will quickly become a distant memory for most. (Notice, I say most; I narrowly escaped the nightmare on I-83 whereas several of my colleagues and acquaintances were not as fortunate...ugh!) With some bright sunny days and cold nights, a slow meltdown of this snow/ice cover will leave only spotty amounts around by Thanksgiving. However, the theme of this upcoming week will be "cold". In fact, for the foreseeable future (in spite of a robust warm up for the early part deer rifle season), it appears that below normal temps will rule the roost well into December. And if you believe the modeling, a stormy pattern will also bring many more threats of wintry precip to these parts as well. Let me explain...
First, the 2nd greatest November snow storm for KMDT since records have been officially kept since 1888...it was clearly on for the books to be sure!
The map below shows the extent and severity of the cold air...some might even refer to this as the dreaded...cue horror music..."Polar Vortex"! Here are the temp anomalies for the next 5 days at one mile up. Big ridge in the west; a large down stream trough in the east. And also, this is a FIVE DAY average and the scale is in Celsius, so you can essentially take the numbers and double them for ºF. Certainly chilly to be sure...
The height of the chill will actually be centered on Thanksgiving eve and day. Take a look at the max temps for Thanksgiving if you believe the Euro; the GFS is a bit more mild but still well below normal. Highs in the 20s are ~25ºF below seasonal norms for late November! A good day to be baking, cooking, roasting, etc...you get my drift.
A big arctic high pressure system will deliver the cold goods...
Here is the next 7 days temp anomaly for the surface of the earth; not one mile up where I like to look for air mass movement...
And then the 2nd week going forward...keep in mind, this does include a robust warm up after Thanksgiving...
So, it is becoming more and more evident that the remainder of the month will certainly feature below normal temps and adding onto what has been a cold month to date. In fact, if you remove the first 2 days of November for KMDT, we are close to 10ºF below the monthly average to date; that's actually quite a deviation over that period of time! Month to date...
I don't often include these, but I thought I'd share for those who might have an interest. This graphic is the Euro ensembles that indicate the range of high and low temps and the white dot is the mean for that period of time forecasted within that range. The farther out into time, the greater the uncertainty and thus the greater the range. But note that the majority of the white dots are at or below freezing and also keep in mind that 45ºF would basically be our average max for this period ending just before Christmas. That's a darn cold ensemble run...
Lastly the upper air mean for the period coming into December. Now I know that some of you don't care about the maps and the reasoning behind some of these weather thoughts, but this map below is a classic stormy pattern, especially for winter. I guess we really shouldn't be surprised as this stormy pattern has persisted for for the last several months. KMDT is ~23" above normal rainfall and this would keep the fire hose coming...
OK...I've rambled enough. As always, I appreciate y'all reading this and even those who jump straight to the AA and/or the song. Here's one for Thanksgiving...enjoy!
I'm out...
Smitty
AA: A cold several week period looks to be on tap with a brief warm spell just in time for the start of deer rifle season. It could also be a continuation of the storminess we've experienced recently as well...but that's a different story for a different day. Happy Thanksgiving my friend!
