Winter Weather

https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/wwd/winter_wx.shtml

Here are the latest hazards across the country.   Green is flooding. Brown is wind, Gray is fog.  Reddish is a red flag advisory. Purple/Pink/blue is cold/Winter weather.

See the rest at the link below.

                          https://www.spc.noaa.gov/  Go to "hazards"                                                                                       

LOOK AT THE COLD COMING!

High Temperatures today and Thursday.

Warm to mild in the Southwest to South to East Coast, while cold in the Midwest/Plains  ooooooozes south for the rest of the week.

Highs for days 3-7:

 
COLD BLASTS with increasing intensity Northcentral  that spread southeast.........eventually reaching the Southeast this weekend.

Coldest air starts shifting east at the end of week 1!

How do these days 3-7 temperatures compare to average at this time of year?

 
Greatest cold anomalies shifting east from yesterdays maps from forecast progression of days out 1 more day.

Low Temperature Departures:

Surface features for the same 3-7 day period:

Major cold air intrusions this week with reinforcing cold fronts ...........high confidence!!!

Cold Arctic High pressure settles in. Mostly dry and near record cold in the Midwest.

A significant Winter Storm that looked possible early in week 2 from last Friday, has turned  into a major threat for a possible Nor'easter, starting towards the end of week 1 now.

"Major Winter Storm on models early in week 2!"

That was the title of Saturdays page addressing this period......and we have been adjusting the placement of the storm since then.

On today's latest 6Z GFS operational model, the potential for the Nor'easter mentioned yesterday is a bit LOWER on Wednesday. Stay tuned for the latest: 

gfs_namer_156_200_wnd_ht	gfs_namer_156_500_vort_ht
gfs_namer_156_1000_500_thick	gfs_namer_156_850_temp_ht

Current Dew Points

Extremely dry air in the Plains to Midwest.

Latest radar loop

http://www.nws.noaa.gov/radar_tab.php

Rains the past 24 hours

You can go to this link to see rain totals from recent time periods:

https://water.weather.gov/precip/

                              Go to precipitation, then scroll down to pick a time frame. Hit states to get the borders to see locations better. Under products, you can hit "observed" or "Percent of normal"      

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     Soil moisture anomaly:

Still  wet on this particular metric in an enormous area.  DRYING OUT in the Cornbelt for a long time(but very chilly air will mean drying rates will be minimal).

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Rains compared to average for the last 7, 14, 30 and 60 days. 

Usually not updated for previous day until late the next day.

Note how incredibly wet it's been over the past 60 days over eastern 2/3rds of the country! It's going to get even wetter, east and south!

https://www.atmos.illinois.edu/~snodgrss/Ag_Wx.html

The top map is the Canadian ensemble average, the maps below are the individual members that make up the average

End of week 2....................0Z ensembles from WEDNESDAY....disagreement has increased a great deal again.  

Zonal, west to east flow and cold air masses trapped in Canada from yesterday on majority looks different today. Several  members bringing the cold air northern stream strongly in somewhere in the US.

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Each member is like the parent, Canadian model operational model.......with a slight tweek/variation in parameters. Since we know the equations to represent the physics of the atmosphere in the models are not perfect, its useful to vary some of the equations that are uncertain(can make a difference) to see if it effects the outcome and how.

The average of all these variations(ensembles) often yields a better tool for forecasting. It's always more consistent. The individual operational model, like each individual ensemble member can vary greatly from run to run.........and represent an extreme end of the spectrum at times. The ensemble average of all the members, because it averages the extremes.............from opposite ends of the spectrum.........changes much less from run to run.

360h GZ 500 forecast valid on Nov 22, 2018 00 UTC

Here are the 0Z GFS ensemble, individual solutions at 360 hours(2 weeks).

Still significant disagreement and uncertainty for this model.

Like the CANADIAN emsembles above, cross polar flow cold  could be re established and bitter cold spreading into Canada.

Latest, updated graph/forecast for AO and NAO here, including an explanation of how to interpret them. 

For late week 2 here on Wednesday, both the AO and NAO forecasts, have even more spread than yesterday. However, now they have gone in the opposite direction of yesterday as there are some that go strongly negative with some still positive.

This increases cold risks later this month.............if the negative one have the right idea.

Just like weather maps having less skill in the later periods, the same is the case with the AO/NAO.

https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/15793/

National Weather Service 6-10 day, 8-14 day outlooks.

 Updated early this afternoon. Big Chill shifts east!!!!

Warm West, shifts eastward.

Dry across the country.

Temperature Probability

Precipitation Probability

the 8-14 day outlooks ArchivesAnalogsLines-Only FormatGIS Data

Temperature Probability