Monday, January 10, 2011

Hurry Up and Wait.......

The pattern will become more progressive now that the block in the North Atlantic is weakening. The problem is that the ridging over Alaska is a little too far North and so will the ridge off the coast. More of a typical La Nina where the Pacific NW will get the storm train while we sit on the mild side of the flow with only light precip possible.

There is really cold air in place today so as the Pacific air moves in tomorrow it should trigger snow showers into Wednesday until it finally erodes away the cold air. We could see a few inches of snow from this warm air advection type snow Tuesday and Wednesday. Then a small storm moves in to our North on Thursday and we could see a few more inches.

Then the storm track pushes into the Pacific NW keeping us on the dry and mild side into the weekend. The models show next week as the transition week of the ridge over Alaska being replaced with a trough, and the trough in the East coming West. This will set the stage for a week of storms the final week of the month. They show the storm track staying to our North next week with the ridge still strong off the coast and then coming South around the 23rd.

I disagree with this because of the forecast for the MJO. The convection should be in the Western Pacific by the end of the week and moving further into the Pacific. This should begin to retrograde the ridge off the coast Westward by the weekend. Then the storm door should open next week with an enhanced jetstream entering the West Coast. The timing will have to be ironed out. This all hinges on the MJO continuing on its forecasted path or else we may see another dry week next week. The models are clueless next week so the forecast only goes through this weekend and then stay tuned as we monitor the pattern change for next week. BA

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