New England Long Range Forecast 03/09/15

Unsettled Weather Impacts I-95 Corridor in the Northeast

GFS is likely not cold enough in Week 2 for two reasons:

1. Phase 1 of the MJO favors colder weather
2. Its normal error probably is catching up to it, trying to get rid of the trough so fast it does not pull in the arctic air mass that will follow (likely farther in than the surge down the Plains).

Look at the Day 7 GFS Operational, Ensemble and ECMWF:

 

The problem is likely over western Canada as the ECMWF handles this much differently

By the time Day 10 comes along, the differences are stark.

GFS Operational:

GFS Ensemble:

ECMWF:

In the 8-10, off the PSU site, we see the stark differences with the GFS in the middle and the Canadian right and ECWMF left. Of course in the GFS is right, then it was surrounded by incompetence, but chances are its more the monkey in the middle

Where the GFS may be scoring the coup is this weekend in New England, where it continues to show accumulating snow:

 

This would not be as bad as what heppened there in early May 1977 as the trees were out full blast for that event, and as of last week even in Providence there was little foliage on the trees. Its in the 60s in much of that area now, but shift the wind to the east and northeast and in comes the ocean air, taken temps down into the 30s tom night and then with the upper low cruising underneath..

Put it this way.. I saw it in the 60s here on Mothers day 2008 ( the mother of all mothers day storms on the Jersey shore late Sunday night and Monday with the hurricane force gusts as the low exploded) but it snowed here in central pa!

This looks colder… Sunday am

 

 

 

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Heavy Rain, Flooding Inundate Southeast

April 18.. the ice is almost gone on Erie

April 18 11 am. 35 degrees in the Poconos patches of snow on the ground

April 18.. Rhode Island is behind central Pa as far as foliage.

Just journeyed to my mom and dads house in RI. The foliage is behind, but more so in New England than pa.

The promise of warmth over the lake and northeast we saw last week on the GFS ensembles is getting dashed again. A strong trough will move through the northeast the middle of next week and cold air sweeps through the lakes into the northeast, cutting the surge of spring and summer out of the southern plains that is coming east. That will be in place though for the major trough to lift through the warm air over the plains for the severe weather outbreak the middle of next week. But sudden shortening of the wavelengths means that the north south ridge ensembles showed.. and again I think alot of people do not understand the ensemble is not a forecast like a single run, its a blend of many model runs.. and what may be a ridge north south very often is a fight in the model where a cluster has many members spread all over the place, as we get closer to the time in question, gravitate toward a single solution. The danger is that the northern ridge is the stronger and getting stuck underneath is the trough

Before looking at that. I heard a weather channel forecaster on the New York outlet refer to tropical downpours in the se tomorrow.

Its going to rain heavily but TROPICAL? WITH TEMPS 20-25 BELOW NORMAL IN APRIL

You may think, Derek why are you picking on someone. Its systemic in my business. I heard a forecast here Monday on the air from a guy happy talking a turn to cooler for Tuesday… he was forecasting windy and cooler with temps in the 40s in the afternoon. a) It was 83 the day before b) it was in the 70s the day he was on..on noon. c) even if it was in the 40s with a leftover shower as he had.. with wind, it feels 40s lower. Never mind the next day it fell into the 30s with wind chills in the 20 and snow in the air after 3 pm.

My point is the communication is important. Downpours yes Tropical.. with temps in the 40s and 50s on an Easter Weekend that is late in the southeast US? Seriously

Now here is the wild thing. If this is classified Sunday or Monday once well off the coast , it would not surprise me. So I guess if that happens you can say…see tropical. But that 500 mb by Easter afternoon where the upper feature is weakening

There is an area of gales but no tight circulation yet forecasted

And yes its going to rain hard.

But I would reserve the tropical downpours for temps in the 70s..

Its like the reason its snowing more is because its warmer.. If we are going to call a storm with ne gales and temps 20-25 below normal in April tropical downpours… what hope is there

Now the 500 mb shows a deep trough in the gulf of Alaska at 72 hours

So guess what happens over the northeast

That trough goes into the west ( the one offshore) but replacing it is the trough coming through the Aleutians. Notice the major flip in the heights in Greenland. So that is going to be a problem. the western trough lifts with the severe weather worry then runs into the block coming back

180 hour

222

And the reload starts anew as the next step would be take the ridge back again and worry about the trough redeepening

Sudden shortening.. and the cold still available. while the surge does come out, it gets beaten back yet again

ciao for now

Warmer Weather Returns This Week

To say the least, most of us are probably sick and tired of winter by this point. The good news is, a warm-up is on the way! Warm temperatures will return to the Northeast beginning Monday,, with the warmest weather coming Tuesday and Wednesday. Here’s a look at a couple of the forecast model high temperatures for Tuesday and Wednesday.

Spring Snow to Spread Over Minneapolis, Duluth

Anyone notice how since 2009 , snow is coming earlier and later each year. Even the super warm winter of 11-12 had the October snow and then the late season one in western pa that left over 250k without power)

In any case the next target is Minnesota where Duluth and MSP could have a record late season snow, or close to it. Rain could cut into totals around MSP and the heaviest could stay south of Duluth, but give the cold that is going to be around the Easter bunny may have to tunnel through snow in some of these places given this is coming tomorrow into Thursday and some of it could stick around. Check out the latest GFS snow totals

Nice colors eh?

speaking of pretty colors.. Its midnight in Manhatten ( Sounds like a line from Springsteen song) its snowing and the radar looks like its got a ways to go

Couldnt get it snow in March.. so I guess its trying to make up for it.. ha ha

ciao for now

 

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Track the Snow As It Spreads Into the Northeast

Snow continues to push eastward, whitening areas in its path.

Snow Returns to Midwest, Northeast Following Summerlike Warmth

Going to use some of the ECMWF ensembles showing the Deterministic vs ensemble to make my point on the issue that would drive home the shock of one of the greatest April Cold Fronts I have ever seen. Part of that was because it got so warm out in front of this.

The Texas Rangers may play their coldest game ever this evening, at least with wind chills. The temperature at this writing was back to 52, but wind chills were in the 30s.

Before I show some of these selected sites. a word about the lack of severe weather. The intense rains in Texas yesterday probably cut alot of the energy needed further north for a major event. Whenever heavy rains go off relatively far south, it causes problems with severe weather. Part of the reason that may happen is because when warm and cold are swapping back and forth so much, it creates a situation where warm has to get re-established and the wind that is doing that may also be helping to take out some of the instability. In any case the tornado drought continues. The big tornado seasons are usually cold in the WEST AND NORTH, but daggers of cold frequenting southern areas blunt this as the south needs to be warm for more than a couple of days. In any case we have had none today and at 89 tornadoes, we are only 15 above the record low through this date.

Now to the “problem” whenever I see ensembles with more snow than operationals in some places it raises my eyebrows that one of the runs before the onset of snow is going to jump the snow amounts higher. Lets look at a wes to east cross section here.. Cleveland Pit Dubois, EWR Boston

Cleveland. The ensembles are a bit lower, but they are very close to the operational, around 3 inches! I ma using the lake front

The upslope areas of the Appalachians are seeing higher ensemble than operational amounts

Pit

Duj

Now we get serious. The modeling is snowy north of I80 in the ne and all through most of New England. But look at Newark NJ

Even the ensemble is over an inch

Then to Boston

over 2.5

Can you imagine if this happens, with temps in the 20s later tomorrow night and again Wed night.. to people that have had their landscapers put in flowers for Easter?

Then there is further south, where a major freeze could occur deep into the heart of Dixie The GFS

at Little Rock

Tuscaloosa

Greensboro

Is it the greatest April Front ever.. 24 hour drops like this. Dont know, but its got to be up there. The biggest problem I have is digging into all Ryan Maue has created to look at things like this. A nice problem to have!

Cold Blast to Bring Spring Snow to Denver, Cheyenne

Snow will continue to press south and erase the recent warmth across the Front Range this weekend.

Could The ECMWF Be Right?

The big news about the run of the ECMWF is not the northeast snow… its the fact that it could even show that which should make folks understand that darn cold air is coming and its coming down the plains first. The “lock” for snow is the front range which should have the major late season event. in addition a big severe weather outbreak is on the way and its the kind of set up, with the clash of extremes, that could get the severe weather season alot of attention. Right now its remarkable again for how quiet its been but we have felt that late April and May would be more active than last year. Right now we are near the bottom for the date

The past 5 months have had the attempts at warming countered by major cold outbreaks. In a way what is looking like is about to happen is similar to the non blizzard weekend in early Feb….the trough this week underachieved relative to it major depth and the ECMWF 8-10 days before. However the source region of the air was not arctic.. this is and its coming full blast for the time of the year. But the tricky factor here is the fact we have 3 major upper features involved. At 72 hours we see the ECMWF with the first one coming out and this is the Denver snowstorm and starts the severe weather outbreak Sunday

The initial position is off the west coast and it rockets east, indicating the active southern stream is alive and kickng

by 72 hours that is already coming into the southern high plains

This is a big ticket severe weather outbreak Sunday into Monday as it lifts. Now here is where it starts getting real tricky as for the fate of the upstream areas. The short coming into the great basin came out of Alaska on the initial, so its from a different branch than what is obviously a fast southern branch. A look 48 hours later

has it dragging its heels a bit, but enough so cold air is charging out so much in front and the combination of it handing some energy off and the cold push way in front leads to the snow threat further east. However if the whole thing comes out and is lined up ( we have faced this problem before and some have come out, some dragged) then we look at even a bigger storm than the ECMWF has, and it has a heck of snow idea with this. But if we look at the 144 you see it does not come all the way in line and we wind up with a very strange look

Given the progression into the southwest of the next system, I would expect this to be further northeast along and with the northern branch, which ups the ante even more than what is one heck of a wild look to this model run. Look at the snowfall in 24 hour increments

48-72

Denver gets it Sunday

snow starts as you can see in the lakes as the trough pushes the cold air.. From Monday-Tuesday

But then the period where you saw that 120 feeding part of its energy northeast

Now one can imagine if all of that hooked up. The result would be more further west, but a heck an event anyway. The overall snow on the ECMWF through the entire period looks like this

The Canadian is more reasonable as the is the control run as they are weaker and further east.. both agree on the front range though!

Control

Control

Both of these are still impressive for this time of the year

one can see the JMA trying to phase this

This would certainly be the further west options back into the west side and into the Appalachians.

But there is alot on the table here and worth the watching..

Here is the forecast.. Headlines will be flying as far as the snow and cold Sunday into Monday with the severe weather too. And of course the usual suspects will be trying to use the same thing.. the WEATHER EVENT as evidence of the climate going wild, while the entire winter based on huge drivers seen before in past patterns ( and given the sun weakening the way it is…. look at this chart as far as that low geomagnetic we pointed out)

is somehow portrayed as just weather.

We live in a crazy world now. In any case for those of you that love crazy weather because you know its causes, you may be able to “enjoy” next week

Which is why I always say enjoy the weather, its the only weather you got

 

Flooding, Tornado Threats Continue in South

Damaging winds and heavy rain will continue from Northern Florida into far southeastern North Carolina into Monday evening.