North American weather pattern

 Howdy I hope all y'all had a wonderful New Year!

Over the last couple of weeks I haven't posted too much as I took a step back and relaxed. Something I rarely get to do!

This post is gonna talk about the general overall pattern for January.

Looking at 500 mb anomaly chart from Tropical Tidbits we can see that big ridge out over the western half of North America and the trough over the eastern half (courtesy Of that persistent upper level low up around the Hudson Bay). We can also see something we haven't seen much of this winter ... and that is that big blocking high up over and around Greenland. This  upper latitude blocking high looks like it's going to have some staying power as we move through January. Another thing on the map is that strong ridging up around Alaska. This is going to help bouts of cold to slide down into the central and eastern US as we move through January. 

While we're going to see the pattern relax a bit going through next week. The pattern that is on the chart right now looks to be the predominant pattern setup for January So we're going to see cold come through our region especially once we get into the second half of January. Another thing in this type of pattern to look out for will be storms trying to sneak in out of the Gulf of America or along or up the East Coast.

The pattern has been very active for several weeks And yes the seemingly endless waves of clippers moving through count as an active pattern. Next week as I said above, the pattern is going to relax as that western ridge breaks down and we get into more of a zonal flow across the northern United States. So we're going to get away from this northwest flow we've been experiencing and have more influence from air coming in from the Pacific, allowing temperatures to rebound. So over the next 7-10 days this is going to be more of a pattern reload than anything else. It surely doesn't mean that winter is over!

We're still in a weak La Nina that is on life support and is quickly turning into a cold neutral state. With the madden Julian oscillation MJO in the neutral phase, that looks to shift into phases 7 and 8 down the road. We should see the southern subtropical jet stream become stronger and more active. I've seen rumblings on social media of a possible storm this weekend. But I'm telling you the pattern were in right at this moment does not support that idea. But I guess we will see! I don't see any big major storms in the pattern for at least the next 7-10 days. But then during the second half of January I expect a pattern to start to turn back towards cold; with the cold continuing to build as we move through the end of January into February. As I said above we are going to have to be on the lookout for storms trying to sneak in as the jet stream forces the storm track to adjust; as the jet stream flows  around the Greenland block and that persistent area of low pressure sitting near Hudson Bay. The storm track should shift south enough that there will be a better chance for some coastal storms to develop and impact our region. I'm not saying we're going to see them. But all I can say is there will be an increased chance for some of them to occur. With the northern polar jack looking to stay fairly active moving forward There will be a chance for more phasing between the streams leading to the possibility of a few bigger storms than we have seen!

So in spite of what some think or claim, we're not done with the cold yet And we still have plenty of winter go to go with a chance for some coastal storms, as well as more synoptic and lake effect events occurring as we move forward.