Last week we went over a lot of information in several different topics (teleconnections, ensembles and long term) and what we found was that there were several contradicting factors. In the end, we came to the conclusion that it wasn’t the worst of places to be in, because it typically meant that we were dealing with some sort of transition that the models were not biased to – we also talked about how great a SE ridge is, and low and behold, the SE ridge is our new best friend for cold.
We’re seeing somewhat of an omega block setup (looks like the greek letter omega) that holds for quite a while. This is good for cold, but it’s not great for storm activity in New England.
You’ll see pieces of energy shoot out of the Midwest, and often times be shunted south, therefore more impactful to the southern Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic. There’s been a few analogs of this December/January to 1995/1996, which is always fun for me to see as the Blizzard of ’96 was the main catalyst for me to pursue meteorology.
The SE ridge seemingly holds into the first week of January – we have a huge Greenland block which is leading to a very negative AO and NAO in terms of our teleconnections. That signifies quite a bit of cold.
Another teleconnection, the PNA or the Pacific North American Oscillation, is one we look at quite often for storm patterns. A positive PNA pattern is best for a stormy pattern, which means that we have an eastern trough and western ridge. We’re not seeing that at all, as we have a western trough and a SE ridge, and we’re going to be in a very negative PNA. Therefore while we’re going to be cold, the natural snow may be hard to come by, and if it does come, it’s likely going to be more Mid-Atlantic/southern Great Lakes storms, not New England ones.
A final note to touch on is that this persists for quite a while into January. Certainly good signs all around from Christmas week into MLK weekend, especially nice after quite the slow start to the season.