It has warmed dramatically over the last 5 days following the start of the month arctic outbreak thanks to the push of Pacific air across the country after the trough departed the East.

Just look at the difference in snow cover between Jan 7 and now. It’s dropped from 52% down to 26% in just a week.

Now!

In yesterday and recent posts, I’ve showed you the charts indicating the return of a colder pattern as we enter mid-month and mid-winter. The pattern overall looks conducive for continued Central and Eastern US cold with troughiness in the means to the East while ridging remains dominant over the east Pacific and Western US, not good for the worsening drought throughout California (see below).

Over the next 7-14 days, northern branch systems will come into the country via Montana and dive southeast towards the Mid-Atlantic but watch out as modelling suggests at least two southern branch developments as the trough sags into the Southeast. Without an CURRENT North Atlantic blocking high, big East Coast storms are less likely but modelling (ECMWF) shows TWO EC storms, this weekend and mid to late next week.

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The current clipper system should bring 1-3, locally 6 inch snows from the Dakotas to Ohio Valley, before potentially a secondary coastal lows forms off the VA capes, bringing a coating to 3 inches from Richmond up to NYC, Boston Thursday-Friday. Another, bigger system threatens the East Coast this upcoming weekend thanks to another system dropping out of central Canada and redeveloping off the East Coast over the warmer-than-normal Atlantic waters. That system could bring a more substantial snow to the Big Cities. All the while, colder air returns to the Midwest and East.

This cold won’t be as bad as what we saw Jan 1-7 because of pacific air mixing with arctic Canada air. With the ridge only reaching central BC and not all the way up to Alaska’s north coast, the truly frigid stuff remains untapped but that may change as we head towards the end of the month with modelling showing the ridge building north into the arctic which should help draw pure arctic, unmixed air south into the Lower 48 with perhaps a Siberian connection once again.

Snowfall now through Sunday.

Fri 17

Sun 19

Wed 21

Plenty of snow on the way. With each system, expect brief warm-ups but all in all we’re returning to a colder and colder pattern again as the ridge rebuilds.

Check out the 850 temps now through next week and notice the West Coast ridge building north, particularly into next week with purples (pure arctic air) being pulled south.

Tue 16

Sat 18

Wed 22

Thu 23

The CFSv2 looks too warm week 1-2 and 3-4 looks rather interesting, setting the stage for a second MAJOR arctic outbreak? It’s possible given the +PNA, -AO.

500mb heights shows plenty of blocking over the arctic and hooking up of the Alaska-Greenland-Scandinavia ridges which lock in the mean trough over the Eastern US.

Wk 1-2 500mb

Wk 3-4 500mb

Wk 1-2 Temps

Wk 3-4 Temps

California Drought Worsens With No Relief In Sight

It’s been the driest past 12 months on record for pretty much ALL of California and over the past 3 months, Santa Ana wind events have been far more frequent than normal bringing high fire risks, extremely low humidity and record warmth throughout Southern California. These on-off frequent events have helped really dry things out and there’s no end in sight.

Today is just another day with a ‘red flag warning’ and ‘high fire risk’ hoisted with winds likely to gust 40-70 mph in the mountains and canyons, 20-40 mph widely with humidity in the 2-5% range and temperatures expected to reach 75-85F from desert to beach.

The persistency of the Western ridge means points further east shall remain on the cold side (particularly Midwest, East) but in turn, this means conditions remain arid throughout California under sunny skies. Northeast winds (Santa Anas) will continue on and off with the ridge core centred off the Redwood coast and that means the HIGH fire risk and records warmth for Southern California.

NO RAIN expected over the next 10 days according to the ECMWF.

CFSv2 Has COLD February In Places That Have Already Shivered, Dire Outlook For California!

The CFSv2 shows a COLD February ahead from Northern Canada down over the Eastern US while high pressures brings warmth and dire rainfall projections for Southern California. NO RELIEF IN SIGHT in the longer term.

CFSv2 February Temps

Precipitation

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