Winter 2019-2020 update.

Just a little update on my thoughts on the upcoming winter.

On my Facebook weather pages, I've been taking for weeks, on the progressive and active pattern.

The models are having a difficult time seeing cold in the medium and long range. This has been especially true with the EURO.  The pattern has been increasingly colder than earlier model runs were showing, this could have big implications for November.  

We've seen a couple of major snowstorms from the Rockies into the Upper Great Lakes. We've also seen a couple of powerful Coastal storms here in the Northeast and Mid Atlantic Region over the last 10 days or so.  Our October 16th-17th storm is going to bring higher terrain snow to New York State and New England, As well as for the Appalachian mountain chain in West Virginia into Pennsylvania.

The progressive pattern is going to continue to allow frontal systems, and digging troughs into the Central and Eastern Continental United States (CONUS).   Over the next couple of weeks we're going to most likely see a couple more nor'easter like coastal storms. There is also going to be a tropical cyclone moving out of the Gulf that will head north and east toward the Northeast and Mid Atlantic. Patterns like to stick around, fall pattern like to move into winter, and winter patterns like to move into spring.

Here is a look at the CFSV2 for November. It looks very warm. Given that we have a weak El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO), west based Quasi-biennial Oscillation (QBO), and very low solar activity. As well as, Sea Surface Temperature anomalies that are hinting at a cold winter across the eastern 2/3rds of the CONUS; the CFSV2 is undoubtedly well off the mark.

I've circled the areas that show a cold pattern for the upcoming winter. Image is courtesy of Tropical Tidbits.

 In my preliminary 2019-2020 winter outlook I said,  2014 was a very good analog, at least for now.  When we compare our current CFSV2 outlook to the CFSV2 outlook from October 2014 we see they look very similar.   An image courtesy of Karsten Haustain shows November 2014 ended up much colder over the eastern 2/3rds of the CONUS, than the model forecasted

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The Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) is in phase 1; where it has been stuck for the last month.  Both the American and European models (especially the EURO) are showing the MJO becoming more active as we move toward November.  This time of year an MJO in phase 2 is a cold signal. This would also suggest November could end up overly quite chilly.  

The QBO will trend east at the 30mb level.   This would be an indication that polar vortex could become unstable enough to allow some arctic outbreaks as we get into December and the rest of winter.  We could see one more warm spell, then the cold will come back to stay.

My overall thoughts for winter 2019-2020 haven't changed too much....but I'm most likely going to tweak things a bit. When I release my final outlook sometime next month.  But all and all winter lovers should smile a lot this winter. 

If you haven't read my preliminary look at the upcoming winter here it is.