This morning marked the coldest start for much of the Northeast as well as eastern Canada since May with widespread 30s and a few 20s including 29 at Saranac Lake, NY and not surprisingly Mt Washington, NH which dipped to at least 27. The wind chill at one point on top of Mt Washington was a bone chilling 9 degrees.

While a chilly Canadian high sat over the Northeast this morning bringing frost for some and refreshing 50s to the Big Cities, there is more cool shots coming down next week and they could be stronger than the one we’ve just seen if the ECMWF is correct.

Here are this morning’s lows across the country and note the chill in the Northeast.

While it was a chilly start, it’s a cool and distinctly fall-like afternoon despite the sunshine across the Northeast extending into the Baltimore-Washington area with low 70s. Same sunshine further west out over the Plains but a very different air mass. Here are the current temperatures as of late afternoon.

Here’s today’s upper pattern and 850 temps off the ECMWF.

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Little changes over the Plains through the weekend and early next week. Another weak front swings through the Northeast this weekend and on the backside comes another cool shot with clear skies, light winds and another patchy frost potential Monday morning.

By mid next week a slight dip in the jet stream over the Northern Plains appears to allow much warmer air back into the Northeast, we could see Pittsburgh, Washington, Philadelphia and New York flirt with 90 degrees.

Does any warmth over the Northeast last? According to the ECMWF, it doesn’t and in fact the next cold shot which arrives late next week, looks stronger than what we’ve just seen.

Next Saturday has a low over the Northeast which could bring heavy rain, wind and chilly temperatures.

Next Tropical Surge Heads For Desert Southwest

It’s been a busy season in the Southwest part of the country for decaying tropical storms throwing moisture north bringing heavy rains and localised flash flooding to the Baja, Northwest Mexico and the American Southwest. Up till now we’ve seen Erick, Henriette, Ivo, Juliette and Kiko draw rich tropical moisture north from the Pacific in the Southwest region while Fernand just over a week ago brought rains across Mexico and up into the Desert Southwest.

We now have newly formed Tropical Storm Lorena and next week, this storm looks likely to bring the Southwest’s next spell of thundery downpours and flash flood concerns even though, like the rest of the storms this year, they dissipate or recurve before ever making it to shore.

The heavy rains are expected early next week with Arizona, southeast California up into Nevada and parts of Utah likely to see the worst.

Here’s the ECMWF surface/precipitation chart out at 78 hrs or Monday and notice the amount of moisture streaming north into the Desert Southwest.

Looking Ahead

When looking out over the next few weeks, the NAO/AO continues to have a slightly positive look while the PNA is trending negative. This suggests a largely zonal pattern for the Lower 48 with any real cold firmly held up across northern Canada.

Admittedly, I did think that a mid to late September cold shot was possible and quite honestly, I wouldn’t completely rule that out just yet as the ensembles shows a possible dip into negative territory late month. Until that happens, arctic air will remain in the source region and the flow will be mainly west to east but with a few kinks here and there as there’s plenty of heat still over the Plains in the next couple of weeks. When you get this level of heat late in the season and with the feedback of dry soils, it can take time for this heat to be removed and thus a ridge in the Plains correlates to a trough in the East, thus shots of cool will keep on coming. After all we’ve got 2 more on the horizon over the next 7 days,

Bored of the current pattern? This should be something to wet your appetite!

CFS 500mb height anomalies for January and February 2014

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