Thursday Evening: WINTER OUTLOOK

Alright folks...here is my official winter outlook and what I think may happen this winter. Please keep in mind that what follows is just my best estimate, and is, at least to me, going to be the most difficult winter to forecast in the last few years. There are SO many variables that could change the outcome, and some people think that forecasting for an entire season is crazy, and for good reason. Just one simple little difference in the Jet Stream configuration could drastically change whether we see a cold winter or a warm winter. Now many of you may have heard rumors that La Nina is developing in the equatorial Pacific Ocean waters. This occurs when the deep, cool waters are pulled to the surface, resulting in below average waters that spread across the Ocean, and depending on how strong it becomes, can cover either a little or most of the equatorial waters. Believe it or not, what may seem like just a simple little temperature change can, in fact, have a DRASTIC affect on not just the type of pattern we have, but the globe as a whole. La Nina is the opposite of El Nino, which is the warming of the equatorial Pacific waters. Now, right now, La Nina is barely in a weak state, and this is very important in determing whether or not this will affect our winter this year. Here is a picture of the latest temperature departures in the La Nina area. Now, as you can see, the area just off the coast of South America is where the most noticeable change in temperatures are occuring. However, notice that they don't extend very far West yet. Now, while they have been shifting Westward, it's not doing so at a alarming rate. In a strong La Nina regime, the entire region West of South America would be entirely below average. But we haven't seen many strong La Ninas' dating back to 1980. I believe there have only been 5, and I highly doubt that we will even get to a moderate stage. With that being said, the latest models are actually forecasting the temperatures to even out, and in most cases, even rise some. What does this mean? It would put a stop to the dropping temperatures, which would mean that a weak La Nina would occur at best. Most likely, this wouldn't have a huge affect on our pattern. But if it did, what would it bring? Well, in strong La Ninas, we would have a dry, and rather warm winter. But in weak and moderate La Ninas, we actually normally have at least one decent snowfall during the winter, and normally during the month of December. Unfortunately, Spring usually arrived early. However, am I banking on us having a weak La Nina type pattern? Right now, I'm very skeptical of leaning one way or the other. I am very concerned leaning towards a La Nina pattern, because last winter El Nino developed, only to disappear, having no affect on us last winter. And I am concerned that perhaps this La Nina is going to do the same thing: just disappear, and with the models hinting at warming temperatures, I'm beginning to wonder if that will happen. However, I have to keep in mind that La Nina conditions could affect our weather as well this winter. So, what about this fall. Well, obviously, we are already off to a warm Autumn season. I think the fall foliage peak will occur a few weeks later this season. I think that once we head into late October and especially early November, we will see a cooler weather pattern develop. But in the meantime, the models look very bleak for any type of cold weather the next few weeks. I believe the rest of this Autumn season will very dry overall as well. Now, what about November? I think overall we will see cooler weather, and hopefully we will have a cool Thanksgiving. Already we are seeing very different conditions compared to last winter. Now, from December to March, things become a little more questionable. It's very uncertain what will occur, but I believe that especially the Midwest will have a very cold and snowy winter, with periodic cold spells here into the Southeast. Depending on whether or not the Southern Branch of the Jet Stream brings storms into the Gulf, we WILL see some snow this year. My hunch is that we will see 1 decent snowstorm, and when I say decent, I mean at least 3" of snow. Obviously the mountains will see more. What will be very important as well in this winter season is the PNA (Pacific/North American Oscillation), NAO (North Atlantic Oscillation), and AO (Atlantic Oscillation.) Usually what brings cooler air into the East is the NAO when it is in a negative phase. And here is what I mean. This is a chart of the NAO index. The PNA and AO ones look exactly the same. The Black line is what has occured, and the red lines are the models projections of what they think will occur (though they are highly unpredictable.) Anyway, whenever the black is below the 0 line in the negative numbers, that means the NAO is in a negative phase, which would typically point to blocking in Canada which allows cold air to filter down into the Eastern US. The PNA works a little differently, and normally when it's positive, the West is colder and the East in warmer. This is how a lot of forecasters predict colder air coming. While not always effective, it's a great indicator of where the pattern is going. I'm using this a lot in my predictions, and notice how during most of this summer, it was negative. This doesn't play a role in our weather much during the summer season, but it shows a pattern. It makes me think that we may see some ups and downs in the NAO index this winter, which would mean cold spells and warmer spells. But if that NAO takes a nosedive, and we can get a storm in the Gulf, then we could see some good snows this year. I'm sorry if this all seems a little boring and off topic, but I figured I would kinda explain some things and show you as I wrote out my winter outlook. And this is just one little thing that forecasting look out when making projections and forecasts. Hopefully your beginning to see how difficult it can be to make forecasts, and why meteorologists are often times wrong. :-)
So, here is a "outline" of my thoughts:
1.) The Autumn season will remain warmer than normal, with cooling weather during November. I don't see much hope for drought busting rains.

2.) I expect one decent snowstorm this winter, which will probably occur during the month of December or January. The decent snowstorm will drop at least 3" on the valley floor, with much more in the mountains. More light snows will occur this winter.

3.) The NAO will take some wild swings, meaning we will see some drastic temperature affects. And assuming that the PNA isn't positive most of the winter, we will see some true cold air. My concern is that the Pacific Northwest will get locked into a stormy pattern resulting in mostly mild temperatures in the East. Then again, this would occur mostly if the La Nina pattern does occur, and again, I'm not convinced that it will.

4.) Hopefully we will start seeing more rainfall once we see a major pattern shift. We have a serious drought that just doesn't want to go away...

I want to point out something very important. What would change the outcome of the this winter the most is actually what will occur out West. If the Pacific Northwest gets locked into a stormy pattern, then this could cause us to have warm weather. Why? Depending on how the storms track into the PNW, they would actually help to draw UP warm air from the Gulf of Mexico as they track to our North. I am hoping very much that this doesn't happen, and it occurs more in a strong La Nina which I don't expect will occur. But then again, it doesn't take El Nino or La Nina for that to happen. If you remember a few years ago, we had a similar pattern which lead to a remarkably warm January. Anyway, just pointed that out to let you know how it could be a warmer winter overall...
That's it for now...PLEASE post a comment if you have any questions, whether it be me needing to clarify something, or whether you have a question about something I didn't mention. Have a great evening everyone...sorry I don't have time to post more. This is just my intial outlook, and again, could be wrong depending on what pattern(s) occur over the next month or so. Normally you can get a good idea of what the weather will bring during the winter when the cool air finally begins marching in just based on the NAO and such...stuff I don't have time to go over right now.

Also, I'm sorry if I seemed a little "scared" of saying whether the weather will be this or that. This is the first time I've actually posted an entire winter weather projection, and I'm still uncertain of several factors that weren't mentioned above. So I'll leave you with this: this winter is very uncertain. It could either be very cold or mild in my interpretation. I don't expect records warmth, and even if it does average warmer than average, it won't be drastically warmer. So I'm sticking to that much. So we'll see how it turns out! And sorry for any typos in the outlook...I didn't feel like reading over it over and over again to find them. :-)

Thursday: 1 PM

Just to let you all know, unless something comes up, I am posting my Winter Forecast this evening...

Tuesday: 12:45 PM

Just a quick update here before I head off to work, but I wanted to share something with ya'll that may very well change my winter forecast. As I have said many times over, something that bothered my was whether or not La Nina conditions would persists, or simply fade like the El Nino did last year. Well, sure enough, according to the latest ENSO models, the temperatures are actually forecast to RISE in the South Pacific over the next few months. While a gradual rise, this would mean a WEAK La Nina at best (good news for us Southerners), or perhaps no La Nina conditions at all. I'll talk more about this later on...especially when my winter forecast comes out. Off to work now...have a wonderful afternoon everyone.

Monday: 10:30 PM

Just a quick update tonight, and it won't pertain to the weather forecast...that will be tomorrow. But I'm writing just to let ya'll know that I'm going to post my winter outlook sometime this week, most likely Thursday or Friday, but could be anytime. Chances are it will be rather lengthy, as there are many, many critical things to cover, and it's going to be very difficult to give an accurate forecast, but I'll try my best.

~Jordan

Monday: 12 AM

Good morning everyone. :-) So sorry I haven't posted in awhile. The weather has been boring overall, and I finally got my laptop situation figured out. In fact, I am now typing this with my newest laptop with wireless internet! I'm so excited. It's nice being able to sit back and type. Anyway, thanks to everyone who wished me a Happy Birthday Wednesday. For those of you who don't know, I turned 18 on Wednesday. And, I got my license Thursday! So it was a good week to say the least.

So what's in store in the weather department? Well, to be honest, not much. We appear to be headed for more 90 degree heat tomorrow and Tuesday. Fortunately, no 100s though, and we are done with those for the year. Rain chances don't look good either, with potentially some showers on Thursday with an approaching cold front, and behind this front temperatures will fall back, but still above average. The true signs of Autumn are still not in the foreseeable future, but I'll let you know as soon as I see light at the end of the tunnel. Autumn officially arrived around 5 AM Sunday morning, so summer is over now. It may not feel like it, but it is. The Atlantic has some items of interests, but what will occur with those systems is still to be seen. The Gulf does need to be on the lookout next week for potential activity, but we'll see.

That's it for now. Sorry again for taking so long to write another post. Have a wonderful day everyone!

~Jordan

Monday: 10 PM

Good evening everyone. I'm sorry I haven't been posting much at all this week. It's been rather crazy. For one, I'm having to have my Dell laptop replaced thanks to Dell, who failed to put in a good backlight, so I could barely see anything on the screen. Anyway, the weather has calmed down a bit' to say the least, but that doesn't by any means mean it's going to stay that way. For one, a taste of Autumn weather is already on it's way, and will "breeze" over our area by this weekend. If all goes as planned, high temperatures both Saturday and Sunday will be around 80 degrees! What a nice surprise that will be. Obviously the further north you go, the cooler it will be. However, this doesn't appear to be a long lasting affect, but I do think the amount of 90 degree days we have left this year are very limited. 100 degree days are definately over, at least judging from the models. And given the pattern we are heading into, I can't see dangerous heat like we say in August occuring again. But one thing is for sure: we need rain! The Southeast continues in it's summer drought, and things aren't looking too bright either. While Chattanooga could get some rainfall this week, it doesn't look like much, and definately not drought busting amounts. And the models continue to show the drought continuing. And with La Nina developing, I am becoming very concerned that this drought may last through the winter as well. It may very well be until Spring when we get very heavy rainfall amounts, but that's aways off, and I don't want to speculate about what could happen then. I'm still gathering information for my Winter outlook, but I gotta admit, I'm still up in the air about it. Could be interesting, or it could be completely boring. But we'll see. Right now there are still some areas of interest in the tropics. I'll post a picture link with the latest info. But nothing at this time appears to be on the verge of becoming a hurricane...at least nothing strong. And the pattern could very well help the United States by steering away any tropical activity. So just continue to hope and pray that we get out of this drought shortly. Tomorrow, I'll give a weekend snapshot (because it does look wonderful!), along with more information on what it to come. In the meantime, hope that the model below is right! The 18z is actually showing some decent rains around here as I just checked them, however, I don't have much trust for these runs. They tend to be less accurate because the instrument data from balloons, etc. isn't inserted into them.






And here is the latest Hurricane information you can get. Remember, you can always click on it to make it larger.

Thursday: 9:15 PM

Hello everyone. Sorry about the lack of posting this week. There really hasn't been too much to talk about. And I'm posting this current post with my new laptop. It's nice being able to sit back on the recliner and chat and what not. Anyway, the Eastern Seaboard needs to be on the lookout for what could become a tropical storm the next few days. Models continue to show that a tropical feature will develop and move towards the Carolinas, but today the system as a whole didn't look too good at all, thanks to shear. But tomorrow should be a better day for the system to develop. More later...gotta run.

Late Sunday Breaking News

This is just downright amazing what you are about to read. In the last post I made, there was no named tropical systems in the Atlantic. And guess what? Now we have a Category 5 Hurricane in the Caribbean! That's right...Saturday morning, the area of disturbed weather in the Caribbean became Tropical Storm Felix, and one day later, we have a Category 5 storm. In fact, the storm today, Sunday, went from a Category 1 storm to a Category 5 storm in less than 24 hrs. Simply amazing. You won't see any type of storm intensify quicker than what this storm did today. "Wow" doesn't even emphasize the incredible magnitude of this storm. Here are some pictures now.
This is a mighty impressive storm I must say. It even makes Dean look like a wimp...not that it was, but this storm has the potential to be absolutely massive. I wouldn't be surprised if it winds up being as big as Katrina was. The good news is that it, once again, doesn't appear to be headed for the United States.

Another photo from the Caribbean. There is another invest not too far behind this one, but the water should be churned up, so how strong it becomes, IF it becomes a named storm, is up in the air.