[dT-REX]

I will be dealing with this a bit more in the Sunday afternoon edition of THIS WEEK IN WEATHER with lots of pretty pictures and diagrams but I wanted to get some ideas out this afternoon while I have the time.

Undoubtedly many of you are deeply frustrated over what appeared to be a ideal and fairly uncommon powerful Greenland block -- which is a particular manifestation of the -NAO --- that retrograde in the from the UK during the holiday period. In addition we also had a fairly powerful and long-lasting 50/50 Low that developed as well.

Yet nothing happened. Indeed event for January 7 and possibly the 10th would be the idealized or textbook case of an East Coast snowstorm that occurs during a phase change of the NAO. This sort of occurrence or scenario is called an Archambault event.... named after Heather Archambault an accomplished research Meteorologist at SUNY.

However the killer was the huge Upper Low...a true PV or Polar Vortex which developed over Alaska and the Yukon of Northwest Canada at almost the exact same time.

It is probable that it is THIS feature that was one of the primary driving mechanisms behind the forecast for a warmer than normal January that some here and many private energy forecasters have been calling for since they made their winter forecast back in the autumn of 2008. This massive vortex... a powerful manifestation of the +EPO .... SHOULD have a set up the blowtorch like pattern for much of the central and eastern US with Above Normal temperatures through the holiday period into the first week of 10 days of January... maybe even longer.

Yet that did not happen. Essentially it is my argument that the exceptionally powerful and large Greenland block was the perfect counter to the PV in Alaska and the Northwest Yukon. In other words IF the block over Greenland had not formed the warm January scenario would be going great guns right now.

Indeed as the vortex over Alaska dies and finally breaks apart so does the Greenland block as it slides back east across towards Iceland and Ireland.

What we are left with then becomes a very powerful +PNA pattern which (my 2nd hypothesis) is going to bring us repeat of what we saw in mid November through December 10.

Yes in other words the pattern is going to repeat itself. We can already see that in the last few runs of the operational European as well as the European ensemble the GFS ensemble as well.

I am NOT ruling out the Jan 10 threat at all at this point in time .

But beyond that... the appearance of a 1040 MB high at day 7-8 over the Upper Plains with 850 temperatures of -28c over MN and Western Ontario... followed by a 1056 MB High at day 9-10.... that features they even larger area of -28c and even a core of -32c is very impressive. Remember this is the European model which generally has a somewhat slight mild bias to it in the extended range.

The parallel between this pattern coming up at what we saw from mid-November through December 10 is simply too striking to ignore. With a hostile Atlantic pattern.... with + NAO and a very strong +PNA it is clear that the arctic Highs are going to slide down the eastern side of the Rockies or Plains... move deep into the lower Plains and then turn East cutting across the Deep South. These Highs will move off the East coast allowing for some Brief warming followed by replacement cold arctic HIGH that sweeps and rapidly from Western Canada into the Plains.

In short the mild forecasts for January will turn to be catastrophically wrong as this pattern will lock in for the rest of the month and probably take us into early February.

Of course a lot of this is speculation and I could be wrong. However IF my hypothesis that the pattern is going to repeat itself is correct... The West Coast Ridge is going to ROLLOVER like it did in early December

IF....

This could mean a return to a very stormy pattern over the Pacific Northwest and set up a overrunning pattern like we saw in December for portions of the Midwest and the Northeast.

That being said that one must keep in mind that since we will much later into the Winter season and the entire track will be shifted much further to the south.

In other words the same synoptic pattern which in December favored the upper Midwest the Great Lakes and n New England with significant snow but missed most of the middle Atlantic would be... IF my hypothesis is correct ... be displaced to the south and thereby WILL affect the Middle Atlantic.

[LVblizzard]

Interesting...great read, DT!

[JAD5656]

Very sexy

[LEESBURG 04]

Good luck Dave...I hope you are making tons of money with your hot streak. Some snow would be nice at some point in Winter. You seem a bit more optimistic than Wes but since he is not that optimistic I still have plenty of doubts about anything good happening to this area.

[mdstorm]

:o
Just when I was about to get off at the "winter to nowhere" station, I am now on the DT train to better times ahead. I'll take some winter overrunning here.

mdstorm

[Jim Hughes]

LEESBURG 04, on Jan 3 2009, 03:54 PM, said:

Good luck Dave...I hope you are making tons of money with your hot streak. Some snow would be nice at some point in Winter. You seem a bit more optimistic than Wes but since he is not that optimistic I still have plenty of doubts about anything good happening to this area.

Hot streak? Dave went from forecasting a very warm January , to not as warm some ten days ago, and now he's going cold, when some of us have been on top of this possibility since late fall. Why do people always perpetuate myths around here. Your to good for this Leesburg. :axe:

[Midlo, va. home snow maker]

Jim Hughes, on Jan 3 2009, 03:57 PM, said:

Hot streak? Dave went from forecasting a very warm January , to not as warm some ten days ago, and now he's going cold, when some of us have been on top of this possibility since late fall. Why do people always perpetuate myths around here. Your to good for this Leesburg. :axe:

Jim i must have missed your winter forecast thread can you provide a link?

[dT-REX]

Jim Hughes, on Jan 3 2009, 03:57 PM, said:

Hot streak? Dave went from forecasting a very warm January , to not as warm some ten days ago, and now he's going cold, when some of us have been on top of this possibility since late fall. Why do people always perpetuate myths around here. Your to good for this Leesburg. :axe:

DEC 3 is 10 days ago?

GOOD CALL Jim

[Typhoon_Tip]

Jim Hughes, on Jan 3 2009, 03:57 PM, said:

Hot streak? Dave went from forecasting a very warm January , to not as warm some ten days ago, and now he's going cold, when some of us have been on top of this possibility since late fall. Why do people always perpetuate myths around here. Your to good for this Leesburg. :axe:

Eh, let him have his accolades. You'll get yours one day.... Besides, I'm just sitting back here in wait of some kind of the warmth explosion in the polar vortex 10mb level to throw everyone off - lol. Hasn't happened yet.. Not sure it will this year.

[dT-REX]

Midlo, va. home snow maker, on Jan 3 2009, 04:00 PM, said:

Jim i must have missed your winter forecast thread can you provide a link?

also all those posters out there whom I have paid off with $$$$ to say bad things about Jim Hughes ...


can you all please post in this thread so as to hijack this thread and make it not about meteorology and science but about Jim Hughes?

thanks in advance !!

[LEESBURG 04]

Jim Hughes, on Jan 3 2009, 03:57 PM, said:

Hot streak? Dave went from forecasting a very warm January , to not as warm some ten days ago, and now he's going cold, when some of us have been on top of this possibility since late fall. Why do people always perpetuate myths around here. Your to good for this Leesburg. :axe:

Jim a hot streak to me implies current thinking. I firmly believe in updating thoughts. I know you have been on the cold January train longer than most and if you made a post like this I would wish that you were making a ton of money as well.

[HKY_WX]

Good read DT. I have to say this winter your med-range game has been as high as I've seen. Stay on the hot streak!

[Jim Hughes]

Midlo, va. home snow maker, on Jan 3 2009, 04:00 PM, said:

Jim i must have missed your winter forecast thread can you provide a link?

I've made plenty of pattern calls for weeks on out around here in regards to anomalies or where we were headed for this winter so far. And I have gone on record with my winter call outside of this forum. And almost everybody knew I was going cold for January and I said it would be the coldest month anomaly wise. Go read HM's winter forecast. So this doesn't float. And I reponded to him being hot when this thread was about what's ahead January wise. Which he has now changed three times. But I'm done with this.

[radarMan]

Best post I've seen this winter...

DTwxrisk, on Jan 3 2009, 03:42 PM, said:

IF the block over Greenland had not formed the warm January scenario would be going great guns right now.[/b]

Totally agree, I thought we'd see the warm late Dec, early Jan, with pure zonal flow, as I did not see the -NAO forming. As you pointed out in one of the week in weathers, the block did not develop in its usual manner, instead retrograding back westward from the UK. A textbook case of why you have to consider global patterns, not just hemispheric, and not only with regard to the PAC but also with the Atlantic.

For sure, it seems like we are looking at rinse wash repeat here... wouldn't be surprised to see record cold in the gulf coast region again before this thing breaks.

[Jim Hughes]

DTwxrisk, on Jan 3 2009, 04:01 PM, said:

DEC 3 is 10 days ago?

GOOD CALL Jim

Dave, You mentioned to someone recently, like in the past ten days or so, that January was going to be warm. Just not the blowtorch Chuck thought. So are you now telling me that you thought January was going to be cold since December 3rd?

[EastWxWatcher92]

Good write-up DT. Guess we shouldn't be so quick to write off winter yet.

[Jim Hughes]

DTwxrisk, on Jan 3 2009, 04:03 PM, said:

also all those posters out there whom I have paid off with $$$$ to say bad things about Jim Hughes ...
can you all please post in this thread so as to hijack this thread and make it not about meteorology and science but about Jim Hughes?

thanks in advance !!

Dave, Nice try with claims and money etc.. And I've seen you hijack threads also. Whether they be Chuck's or Ruggie's. So let's not act all innocent. But I'll take Tip's advice. And I'll let your fan club talk you up.

[ACFD E101]

Jim Hughes, on Jan 3 2009, 04:22 PM, said:

Dave, Nice try with claims and money etc.. And I've seen you hijack threads also. Whether they be Chuck's or Ruggie's. So let's not act all innocent. But I'll take Tip's advice. And I'll let your fan club talk you up.

So you coming into this thread and hijacking it is ok? Maybe you shouldn't worry about others so much and focus on your own forecasting. You're coming off as a jealous, attention seeking person.

[earthlight]

Excellent post Dave---as usual. Always learning when reading this. Thanks.

John

[ChantillyWX]

Dave --

Regardless of the he said/she said...

Thank you for being generous with your time.
There are dozens if not hundreds of folks who read this board, and we appreciate your sharing your thoughts with us.

And if it's not being too personal, I want to compliment you on your change of tone and attitude in all your posts.
You said recently that you don't "do that" anymore, referring to how you tended to respond in years past.
It takes good personal strength to change your actions, and you've clearly done that. Congratulations, and thank you (again).