Good Monday, folks. We have another cold front on the way over the next few days and this will increase our storm chances, before knocking temps back down several degrees. As the pattern starts to feature more cold fronts over the next few weeks, I thought it would be a good time to look a little farther down the weather road into Fall and Winter.

This is am old school blow out post, so buckle up. 🙂

Scattered showers and storms will increase today as humidity levels continue to rise. A few storms can put down some torrential rains…

Showers and storms increase again on Tuesday, ahead of our cold front diving in from the north. Another shot of cooler than normal air comes in behind this for Wednesday and Thursday…

All of this happens as Chris works along the east coast…

cone graphic

Temps return to seasonal levels over the weekend,but a deepening trough looks to sweep in by early next week. That could unleash a cooler pattern for much of the country…

It’s the time of year I start to really take a look at the overall setup leading up to fall and winter. The first place I look to is the Pacific Ocean. You often hear me talk about El Nino or La Nina and the impacts they can have on our weather. El Nino is abnormal warming of the waters around the equator, while La Nina is abnormal cooling of those same waters.

The mistake many folks make when talking about El Nino or La Nina is by not looking at the placement of each event. In many cases, placement often plays a bigger role than strength. The Nino regions are broken up into 4 areas…

This year, we are seeing the seasonal models pointing toward a weak El Nino developing in region 3.4. You can see this spike in the tri-monthy forecast through the winter…

Region 1+2 is forecast to be much cooler compared to normal and compared to region 3.4…

Why is that important? History tells us that when region 3.4 is warmer than region 1+2, it increases the risk for colder winters across the eastern half of the country. When 1+2 is warmer than 3.4, our winters have a greater chance to be warmer than normal.

What do all those squiggly lines actually look like on a map? Here is the December-February Sea Surface Temperature anomaly forecast from the CFS…The boxed area shows the greatest anomalies showing up in region 3.4. You will also notice the warmer than normal water along the west coast of North America leading to our infamous warm pool in the Gulf of Alaska. That warm pool can be a big driver to help pump a ridge into Alaska and western Canada, forcing a trough into the eastern part of the country.

So, as I start my preliminary look into the upcoming fall and winter, those two things really stand out in a big way. Winter weather lovers should like the sound of that.

Have a great Monday and take care.