When will we see a prolonged warm-up?

 

Chuck Lewis has told me, some of y’all are asking when we’re going to see a prolonged warm up?  I also want to thank Chuck for being a big help in posting my blog post onto Facebook!

 The pattern is setting up to be extremely active.  We have a ridge sitting off the Southeast. So, this is allowing for the main storm track to come out of the southern Pains and up through the Tennessee and Ohio Valleys.

The next few weeks are going to see several storms bring impacts into the Middle Atlantic and Northeast.

A look at the teleconnections

 La Nina conditions emerged during December 2024. The La Nina signature across the central and east-central equatorial Pacific Ocean was weak then and it is still weak. It still looks like we will see this weak La Nina to an ENSO neutral state by early spring. So, as they have all winter, the other teleconnections will have more sway in the pattern.

 

The North Atlantic Oscillation. Has been positive but it looks to go sharply negative. This will tramp down on that ridge, allowing the main storm track to push south.  So, this is a signal for cooler temperatures along with the overall pattern becoming wetter for the eastern US. It also increases the risk for high latitude blocking up near Greenland, which increases the snow chances and possibilities for nor’easters.  

 

The Arctic Oscillation (AO) is also going negative.  The AO is a good way to monitor where the coldest air is and where it will be going. A Positive AO typically has the cold air locked up to our north. When it goes into negative values, we usually see a push of this cold air spreading south across the U.S.

 

The Pacific North American Oscillation (PNA) has been predominantly negative this winter, when looking at the long range it looks to stay negative for the foreseeable future. With a negative pattern in place, generally we see troughing in the West and ridging over the east. So, this is a warm signal. The PNA interacting with the other teleconnections is one of the reasons for the active pattern with up and down temperatures.

The Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) is currently in the NULL phase this is commonly referred to as the Circle of Death (COD). When it’s in the COD, the MJO exerts very little influence on the overall pattern. So other teleconnections take the driver’s seat.  When looking at the phase diagram we can see The MJO will be headed to the cold phases of 8, 1 and 2.

 

The Eastern Pacific Oscillation (EPO) is currently negative. This generally means we have a ridge out west with overall troughing in the east. This allows for that cold air to side out of Eurasia to slide down the ridge bringing cold air to the central and eastern U.S.  But looking at the diagram we can see it looks to turn positive.  So, we could end up seeing the ridge in the west weaken enough, to allow for more of a zonal flow (west to east) where cold air gets shut down and more of that Pacific air mass getting into the pattern, that would battle that negative AO and NAO. Resulting in a bit of a milder pattern.  The EPO could throw a monkey wrench into the pattern the other teleconnections are hinting at.

 

 

We look to see the polar vortex split, with one piece heading toward Europe and Asia and the other heading into eastern North America. If this is the case, then another longer duration arctic blast is looking likely.

 

 

My thoughts.

Currently all the teleconnections with the exception of the negative PNA are showing a cold signal moving forward. But down the road the EPO does have that monkey wrench in hand. But over the next few weeks it looks to turn sharply colder, with the negative PNA keeping the pattern very active. So, we should see enough cold that snow events are very likely.  

Here are the NOAA Temperature Outlooks

6 to 10 Day Ending Feb 14

Is showing below average temperatures

 

8 to 14 Day Ending Feb 18

Is showing the Northeast is below average with the Middle Atlantic warmer with temperatures near average, but it also shows a lot of colder air expanding across the Northern and Central US. This should generally continue to drop into the Midwest and eastern CONUS.

 

 

So, I think we will see temperatures progressively get much colder than the CPC temperature outlook is showing.

Here is the Euro Long range temperature and snowfall forecast from WeatherBell. While we can’t take this verbatim, they are showing the models general thoughts on the rest of winter. I don’t what you to focus on the exact numbers the model is showing, but just that the model is showing more cold and snow is to come. Based on what I’ve been looking at I do think the Euro does have a good handle on the overall pattern.  

Temperature

 

 

Snowfall

 

Based on what I’ve pointed out, I don’t think winter is done by a long shot. The polar vortex has been wobbling around a lot this winter, that looks to continue, So the 2^nd half of February into March could end up similar to what we saw back in 2014. Going forward could be very volatile. I just don't see any long duration warmups over the next several weeks. Could the Northeast see it’s first white Easter in a very long time?