Good Monday and Happy Labor Day, folks. Summer is wrapping up by the calendar, but our steamy temps aren’t going down without a fight. Toasty thermometer readings are back to carry us through the week. As this is happening, I’m seeing a pretty amped up pattern developing over the next few weeks.

We will dive into that pattern and talk a little wintertime! 🙂

Highs today will be in the mid and upper 80s across many areas. A stray shower or storm may try to pop across the west.

Temps from Tuesday through Thursday will be 90ish in most areas as humidity levels increase. That can lead to a storm or two developing.

The best chance for showers and storms arrives Thursday night into Friday.

GFS 2

That’s kicks off a very busy pattern, full of systems ready to impact our weather. The next one should arrive in the form of a stronger cold front by Saturday…

Euro

This active pattern may mean some decent rains and several shots of cool air. Check out the system coming in behind that early next week…

Euro 2

Euro 3

Labor Day is here and it’s time to take a little look toward winter and how things may play out. It’s still very, very early in the game, but their are signs of another active winter ahead.

Let’s focus on the state of the ocean temps and how they may play out going forward. The current snapshot of the temperature anomalies show an amazing amount of warm water surrounding North America…

SST

That’s actually an absurd amount of warm water and it has effectively crushed any attempt at a La Nina developing. You can see some spots of cool water showing up near the Equatorial Pacific, but the surrounding warmth is overpowering it. This looks like we may have a neutral signal showing up through fall and into winter.

If you want snow and cold, that’s not such a bad thing. Why? Because you will also notice the big pool of VERY warm water in the Gulf of Alaska and south. That has shown up quite a bit in recent years and has been a driver (in my eyes) to some of the harsh winter setups we’ve had. Last year, that signal was largely overpowered by the super El Nino. Though, we did get another historic snowstorm.

The prior winters of 2013-14 and 2014-15 were brutal in our region and also had this pool of warm water. Here’s a snapshot of it from the 13-14 winter…

SST 3

That’s not a terrible match for the WeatherBell CFS forecast for the December-February ocean temp anomaly forecast…

SST 2

Without an overpowering signal, will that help lead to another harsh winter? That remains to be seen, as many other factors also figure into the mix.

There are many additional years I’m also looking at. Among them, 1983, 1992 and 1995. Just throwing a littler red meat out there. A few clunkers also show up, but there are more “good” winters than stinky ones.

Have a great day and take care.