DONT LOOK AT DAY 8 WHATEVER YOU DO!!! -- LOL....

Well that was a pretty good Thanksgiving and I dont telling you I thoroughly enjoyed the Noreaster... along with the usual traditional dinner. This of course is the last Thanksgiving on I am going to be spending here in Chesterfield Virginia. This house has a lot of meaning for me ... my son was born in this house... grew up through Toddler hood and now as a 9 year old and in this house I started this business and web site here in the basement which is my home office. And while the new location surely is nicer it takes a while for it becomes home... but isn't that always the case when you move?

Before I get into the actual forecasting here this morning I wanted to make a couple of brief comments. First in my little humorous blurb I made in the previous posting about having the wrong attitude with regard to altering a forecast... I may have stepped on a few toes accidentally. There are a lot of meteorologists in the private sector who have that mentality of not changing the forecast until actually busts. It is not just a NWS mentality. In fact I know a lot of forecasters in and of US who do change the forecast when it is needed especially is the short-range. Really all I was attempting to do to make the a point was taking it to the Nth degree. No offense intended.

Second... there seems to be this perception out there that regarding the debate on how warm the winter it is or is not going to be ... and that it is aimed at one particular person or perhaps just a few people. Well that really isn't so. There are a lot of private forecasters both on their own and within Energy and at the Agricultural companies which are forecasting a pretty mild winter. The forecasters over at Sempra trading and Telsa forecasting and some folks over at Citadel... are all in the warm winter boast ( just to name a few). This friendly discussion and debate is not really aimed at any one particular person. For me it is an intellectual exercise to see if the techniques and ideas which I've used over the last several winters actually has a some sort of validity or perhaps that I am just lucky and I'm really just full of Bravo Sierra.
OK let's move on to the weather. As many of you know I've been forecasting a pattern change to occur at the month into early December (since Mid NOV) as well as the potential for some sort of significant event over the eastern US. Not necessarily an East Coast event but some sort of significant low as a possibility on 11/20- 12/1. Of course it might be more likely send the second but that's the general idea.

In case you did not see the European model over the last couple of runs I am presenting the date 10 European from 0z Thurday then 12z Thurs and 00z Friday.

http://wxrisk.com/MODELFOLDERS/today/NOV24/0Znov23D10.gif

http://wxrisk.com/MODELFOLDERS/today/NOV24/12zNov23D10.gif

http://wxrisk.com/MODELFOLDERS/today/NOV24/0Znov24D10.gif

As you can see each warm the solutions are significantly different from the other... with the first map being the coldest. I am not really forecasting some sort of bitter arctic outbreak percentage or the coldest air mass in several years or anything like that. My whole argument here is that the pattern which is dominated Noth America for November... which has featured a deep Vortex over the eastern Gulf of Alaska near the British Columbia / Alaska Panhandle Coast... is going to break down and this result in a more seasonal early December pattern. Not historic cold... Not severe cold... Not exceptional cold just seasonal. Even though there is a wide variety of solutions on many of these medium-range models by date 10 which is to be expected in aweak El Nino pattern the one thing that we can see is that very few of the models or in some old members are still showing a deep for tax in the Eastern Gulf Alaska. Some depict a strong+PNA... some a weak +PNA... some with a split flow. But from what I can see very few if any are still showing the powerful Vortex on or just off the West Coast Canada by DEC 1


Of course with all the energy initially going into the Rockies & the Great Basin... the Ridge over the eastern third of US is going to strengthen dramatically and I would not be surprised if Chicago got close to 70° Tuesday afternoon. Interestingly although the Ridge over the SE states looks very strong the actual cold front does not really slow down and makes pretty steady progress day 5-6-7.

Of course the overnight European model at D7-8 as well as the 0z GFS and 6z GFS are trying to develop some sort of coastal low on the front. Given the matter of cold air which is going to be pouring in rapidly behind this front and the fact that that the front might stall just after it clears the East coast the development of this coastal Low is a very interesting feature indeed.

http://wxrisk.com/MODELFOLDERS/today/NOV24/12zNov24D7.gif

http://wxrisk.com/MODELFOLDERS/today/NOV24/12zNov24D8.gif

http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/nwprod/analysis/namer/gfs/00/fp0_192.shtml

http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/nwprod/analysis/namer/gfs/06/fp0_192.shtml


If this was the middle of Winter there would be a lot of snow talk going around the various when the communities for next DEC 2. To be sure given the fact that the seasonal trend has supported so many coastal Low pressure areas this season it would be foolish to completely dismiss the idea of a coastal Low developing on the base of the trough December 1-2. It is early but I am not going to dismiss the idea and there is some support from the various GFS ensembles for this sort of scenario as well. The problem is of course that the cold air has be in place as soons as the front passes... it still eight days out ... and an awful lot can go wrong. It is not an ideal pattern for any sort of winter threat for the East Coast... and everything past fall in place just exactly right for something like us to occur.

By D10 you can see many of ensembles are showing some activity with respect to strong short waves of dropping through the Gulf Alaska headed towards British Columbia / Pacific Northwest there are no members that show a deep vortex STILL situated in the Gulf Alaska. None.

http://wxrisk.com/MODELFOLDERS/today/NOV24/f240.gif

http://wxrisk.com/MODELFOLDERS/today/NOV24/gz.1124.240.gif


By 288 hrs 12/6 things look a lot more interesting. C001 which is the Operational 0z GFS looks pretty benign when you compare it to some of the other members such as C000 (wow) p001 p003 p004 p008 p009 p010 and P011 (wow). This is not enough support from the various ensembles in my opinion to get "excited" about some possible event on December 6 but it is something to look at.
http://wxrisk.com/MODELFOLDERS/today/NOV24/f288.gif