No-Hype Analysis of Upcoming Weather Pattern, Including "Potential" Storm

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We are busting out of the Deep Freeze late this week, with temperatures in the 20s this afternoon, near freezing Friday and near 40 on Saturday. However, with a front settling across the region tonight through Saturday morning, a little snow will fall at times.One of the tools meteorologists use in the short range is the "Short Range Ensemble Forecast" model and it looks like this:srefThe most recent run of that model is the green line, while the oldest is the blue. The trend on this and other models has been LESS predicted snow each run. The most recent run gives the Youngstown area a total of 1.3" between Thursday night and Saturday morning. Snow that does fall will be very light and travel headaches should be minimal.By Saturday afternoon and evening, the atmosphere will have warmed enough that an approaching cold front will produce RAIN, not snow. Check out the nice surge of milder air coming north on Saturday's high temperature map:highssatBehind the cold front, next week will start colder, but thankfully not as cold as it has been.Now, what about the midweek storm????It seems likely that there will be a significant storm system approaching from the southwest late Tuesday into Wednesday. That said, the weather disturbance that will lead to the storm is wayyyyy out over the Pacific right now. In fact it's just south of Alaska:stormnowUntil the disturbance makes it onto the mainland US this weekend, computer models will not be completely trusted by experienced meteorologists.That said, right now the models have the same "general" idea with how things will evolve. Here's the European model for Tuesday night. It has low pressure in southwest Ohio, with a warm front nosing into northeast Ohio:EUROSTORMThe GFS model has a similar look:GFSSTORMIf this does in fact end up being the exact placement of these features, we would likely have several hours of snow Tuesday evening, then a risk for mixed precipitation. Why could freezing rain and/or sleet take over? The air 3,000-6,000 feet above our heads may warm to above freezing, resulting in falling snow melting.Here's the projected freezing line at around 5,000 feet Tuesday night at 1am:euro850As I said, until the weekend, I am going to take everything the models say with a grain of salt. I am showing you the most LIKELY scenarios based on the CURRENT information, but this information is likely to change at least a little over the next few days.IF mixed precipitation does occur, snow amounts could be cut by a significant margin. If there is little or no mixing, this storm, based on the current information, has the potential to bring at least a half a foot of snow.I will of course keep you updated here, on TV, on social media and on my Weather For Weather Geeks video.After the storm....COLD! Latest computer models paint a very cold picture for the 2nd week of February:gefsWinter is, sigh, FAR from over.Thanks for reading!Eric

Harsh Cold, Then a Break? What About February?

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"Winter Fatigue" is setting in, big time. Each time I have posted about the cold and snow on social media this week, the comments have shown that we are getting fed up with the icy grip Old Man Winter has on us.There are no changes to my thinking in how the weather will evolve over the next week. 3-5" of snow Friday night into Saturday...then another 2-4" Sunday afternoon into Sunday night. After that, BRUTAL cold Monday through Thursday. Wind chills will be as low as -30 or so Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. Be sure and check in frequently on my Facebook and Twitter feeds for the latest.What about after that??? Well, first of all, it's much too early to say what the Summer will be like.   I will say that a cold winter usually does not mean it will be a cool or hot summer; there really is not much of a correlation most years.But we can take some educated guesses on Super Bowl/Groundhog Day weekend and February as a whole. Let's compare the weather pattern now vs. what is expected in 9 days (Super Bowl Sunday).Saturday's upper-air chart shows our Polar Vortex over Hudson Bay in Canada, with a MASSIVE ridge of high pressure over the West Coast. This pattern is allowing cold air to make a beeline straight from northern Canada into our region.sat500By February 2nd, the computer models are showing a pattern that is finally changing (at least temporarily):sbowl500Notice the Polar Vortex is farther north, closer to where it usually lives. Also notice the West Coast ridge has reoriented itself over the Gulf of Alaska. Now that that massive wall of high pressure is away from the West Coast, Pacific air (instead of arctic air) should be allowed to move across the country.SO HOW "WARM" MIGHT IT GET IN YOUNGSTOWN IN THIS PATTERN?30s, maybe 40!!!!! Break out the noisemakers and party hats.Back to January for a minute. It has been cold, yes, but we are not in the Top 10 coldest Januarys on record, YET.This month's average temperature: 21.0 degrees.dayfileHere's the top 10 coldest Januarys on record in Youngstown:coldjan19.2 degrees gets us on to the list. We will probably get there next week.I looked at a handful of the years in that list to see what February was like after that cold January. It's a mixed bag; some of those Februarys were warmer than average (which is 26.1 degrees), some colder:febsAs for this February...despite the early part of the month being much more tolerable than much of January has been.....long-range models and forecasters are indicating that overall it will be cold (with severe cold likely in Midwest/northern Plains):februarySpring begins March 20. Hang in there.Eric

Return of the Cheek-Numbing Cold

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Today begins an 8-9 day stretch of cold weather that will easily be the most prolonged bitter cold spell of the entire Winter. During the cold snap of 2 week ago, we had a morning with a low of -12 and the wind chill was around -35. This week will not feature readings that cold, but this stretch may be PERCEIVED as worse because of how long it will last.It's not often I can put out a 7 day forecast with this many "skinny numbers" on it:7day So which mornings will "feel" the worst?Here are Wednesday morning's projected Wind Chills:chillswedamThat's about -5 or so here (much worse in NW Ohio!)Here's Thursday morning:chillsthursamIt should feel like it is around zero or a bit lower.Friday morning is likely to feel quite a bit colder as a fresh batch of arctic air arrives:chillsfriamBack down to -5 or so.The WORST Wind Chills are likely to occur early NEXT week...check out next Tuesday morning's numbers:tuechills-25? Yuck.A couple of weeks ago, the term POLAR VORTEX got a lot of attention, in fact WAY too much attention. The Polar Vortex is a permanent feature in the northern latitudes. It is nothing new at all. Often when it gets cold in our part of the world, it's because the Polar Vortex has dipped south of its usual home....resulting in arctic air getting shoved south. This will happen over the next week or so.The Northern Hemisphere weather setup by Saturday will look like this:satglobeThe "L" is the Polar Vortex, centered over southern Canada. The big ridge of high pressure will remain over the West Coast, resulting in more dry weather where they desperately need rain.Next Tuesday....not much will have changed:nexttueglobeThe flow of air will be from the North Pole to the Plains to the East Coast. A cold flow, that's for sure.This stretch of harsh cold will go a long way toward determining how this Winter will go in the history books. From December 1 until now, it's actually been fairly typical in the temperature department. Many, many recent Winters have been colder through January 20 than the current one (blue circle):wintersThe winter of 1976-77 (and 1977-78) was remarkably cold, much colder than the rest of the last 40 winters.As I said, this cold snap will last 7-9 days, taking us almost to the end of the month. After that, long-range computer models suggest that February will start with more tolerable weather....perhaps near average for Groundhog Day. Average is the black straight line; the white boxes and green bars are the forecast:gefs Thanks for reading and have a great Tuesday!Eric   

A Little Mid-Winter Review

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"Meteorological Winter" is a bit different than "Astronomical Winter", which runs from about December 21-March 21 each year.  Meteorological Winter is considered to be December 1-February 28...the 3 coldest months of the year. So, we are now about halfway through Meteorological Winter. Let's take stock of the Winter so far.Here are the cold hard facts in one tidy graphic:dayfile Notice that the "departure from normal" number is not that significant, 0.3 degrees below normal. Here's a snapshot look at each day's temperature pattern so far:tempgraphWe are above normal in the precipitation department, mainly because it has been fairly snowy so far. This chart shows the recorded snowfall this season compared to average (and I threw last season's snow for the same time period for the sake of comparison):CaptureJanuary has been REALLY cold, right? Well overall....not really. A bit below average, yes.....but the extreme cold we had last week has been balanced by many mild days recently. Here's the departure from average map for the US and Canada so far this month:jananom Check out what the mild air has done to the ice coverage on Lake Erie since last week. It was nearly frozen over after the Arctic outbreak (left side) but many open area appeared this week (right side):modiscompare What does the next 7-10 have in store? Some pretty typical January cold is likely through early next week. The next 2 maps show temperatures across North America today (top) and Monday (bottom):2mnow2mmonday Notice that the harshest cold will be mainly bottled up in Canada early next week. BUT, the floodgates will open by midweek and it looks quite cold for a few days: 2mweds What about snow? At this point it does not look like we will see any significant accumulations over the next week.But what about the rest of Winter? Predicting how much snow we will get over a 6 week period is next to impossible....but for "fun", I looked at previous Winters that had similar snow totals in the December 1-January 14 time frame to this Winter.Average snowfall from January 15-February 28 is 22 inches. But despite snowy starts to Winter, 4 out of 5 of the Winters I looked at had below-average snow in the 2nd half of the season.1969: 12.7"1970: 19.9"2004: 25.4"1957: 14.4"1996: 7.8"Will this Winter end with a whimper too? We shall see!Thanks for reading!Eric 

Cold Snap Recap; Now What's On Tap?

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We are slowly emerging from the most severe cold snap in 20 years in northeast Ohio and western Pennsylvania. The last of the Wind Chill Advisories has expired and the wind is mot much of a factor today.The low of -12 Tuesday morning tied for 9th place on the list of coldest temperatures on record in Youngstown:mintemps The high temperature of 2 tied for 8th place on the list of coldest daytime high temperatures:minmax This high resolution satellite image shows visually what the coldest day in 20 years looked like on Tuesday: streaks of lake-effect snow, lakes freezing over, ice jams on rivers and a deep snowpack on the land:modislakesLake Erie is freezing over quickly. Check out this animation showing the increase in ice cover just over the last 48 hours:output_w8AgQoThe first week of January has been remarkably cold in much of the country. This map shows the temperature anomalies (departure from average) so far this month:jan1stweekA nice January Thaw is about to unfold. The Polar Vortex is heading back to where it belongs, in northern Canada and this will allow milder air to sweep across the country.jetBy Saturday, temperatures may reach the lower 50s in Youngstown; that's over 60 degrees warmer than Tuesday morning's low of -12.  While the daytime highs after the 1994 cold outbreak did not get into the 50s....the magnitude of the warming trend was similar (about a 60 degree change):1994It IS January though and any mild air is not likely to stick around long. The 7-14 day temperature outlook shows colder than average temperatures in our part of the country:7-14Thanks for reading!Eric