From earliest snow as far south as Galveston, TX to coldest Thanksgiving on record for parts of the Northeast, November 2018 will go down as one of the coldest in US history.

Month so far.

There are a couple of contributors to such a chilly November. A cold September for much of Canada and building of heights over Alaska led to a cold October for the central US and with further help of a powerful Aleutian high and stretched polar vortex, November has been the coldest of what’s been a cold fall.

Just a few days ahead of the record cold we saw a record snowstorm. In fact New York City’s earliest 6+ inch snowstorm.

The type of strat warming we’ve seen at 10mb in the last 10 days has allowed Siberian air to cross the polar and reach the Northeast.

https://twitter.com/gdimeweather/status/1066001217309024256

https://twitter.com/Climatologist49/status/1066022038182092800

https://twitter.com/NWSBoston/status/1065914124369125376

It looks like the cold pattern pulls back up into Alaska and the north as we commence December. Interestingly the CFSv2 weeklies show that AK trough/Lower 48 ridge holding through December.

However, there’s increasing model confidence that the strat warming from Siberia to Alaska and northern Canada continues and intensifies, pushing the polar vortex south over eastern North America-Atlantic and Europe. This supports a return of a highly anomalous Alaska ridge and the southward push of polar air.

My hunch is that we’ll see a 10-15 day pullback and milder pattern but the cold reloads and returns south mid December on through Christmas.

Featured image: Via PhillyWx.com

Tags: featured, monthly-outlook