Senin, 27 Desember 2010

Gradual moderation later this week...

Here is today's edition of the Carolina Weather Video....



Lots of snow still on the ground around the region after our Christmas weekend snow event. I am very happy that so many folks that wanted snow got it. And I also think it is incredibly neat to get snow on Christmas weekend.

Today will still be very cold with Piedmont highs struggling to make it above the freezing mark. It will also be breezy, adding insult to injury in terms of how it feels. Lows will be bitterly cold tonight....teens for most in the area.

Gradual moderation will take place later this week with some highs actually above average by New Years Eve. Some spots could be in the 60s for the first day of 2011. However, I don't think this is a prolonged warm-up with cooler air ready to move back in by Monday of next week or so.

January....

I see no sign of a 'warm' pattern coming for the eastern US. This is the week that pattern seems to be kind of reloading. However, the NAO and AO will remain negative, and we might even see the PNA spike toward positive. All of this, to me, indicates that more cold air is on the horizon.

It is very early in the winter season, so chances are, we have not seen our last winter weather potential. In fact, most of our winter weather events occur during the second half of winter, so tons of time to go.

What did we learn about the models from this most recent system?

First of all, the European model is still the model of choice in the medium range. It was the first to latch onto the idea of a big east coast storm. It had this idea while the GFS was indicating this to be a weak system that rode along I-40.

Admittedly, the Euro lost touch with the system a bit in the 2-3 day range, but it never completely lost the overall idea....it was just later with less impressive with any phasing.

The NAM is still clueless. Granted, I used it to verify the Euro ideas in the 60-84 hour range, but it totally lost touch with reality as the event neared.

The Canadian also had the idea of a big east coast system 4 and 5 days ahead of the event, but it too then lost the idea and never really got it back...at least in terms of the global model.

So, all in all, the Euro still led the way. And although it has its biases and can never be blindly trusted, it definitely means if we see something on the Euro for a few runs in a row, that idea probably has at least some merit.

But here is the thing that I think gets lost more and mote in meteorology today. The models are just tools for the meteorologist to use. So few times nowadays do people look at the actual weather and compare that to experience from the past. That is where real meteorology comes in.....not just reading models.


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