We're in the middle of November and the winter pattern is quickly evolving!
We're in the process of a sudden stratospheric warming developing. This is when stratosphere temperatures near and over the North Pole quickly warm. This often leads to a weakening and disruption in the polar vortex Which can send cold air down into the lower latitudes.
Image credit global weather systems.
This is an unusually early warning and strongly suggest we could see the polar vortex weakening or breaking down. Leading to a good chance for a lot of cold later this month into December.
The data shows a very impressive Stratospheric warming event for this early in the season. If this proves out the eastern US could get quite cold for the end of November into the first part of December. As the polar vortex would be displaced And we could see some cross polar flow of air coming in from Siberia directed into the United States.
In addition to this the setup as we move through the end of November and into December looks to support a lot of Greenland blocking.
This does supports the ideas I raised in the winter outlook where I said end of November and a good part of December could be quite cold and active. With a good shot at early winter activity. To add to that, as we get heading into thanksgiving and over thanksgiving here in the Northeast we could be dealing with a couple of storms. With the cold air that looks to be in place it could get quite snowy. We have a couple of weeks to see how all this trends and evolves So we'll see!
The drought conditions in the Northeast
I didn't post on the drought last week So I wanted to correct that and post this now.
With all the rain last week several areas across Pennsylvania New York State into New England Saw improvement. But we do see a few small areas in Maryland, Delaware into southern New Jersey as well as far northeast Maine did sea drought conditions expand a bit.
The drought monitor released on Thursday the 6th, showed 10% of the Northeast in extreme drought, 13% in severe drought, 31% in moderate drought, with 31% experiencing abnormally dry conditions. Compared to 11%, 23%, 31% and 28% the week before.
