Good Monday and Happy Halloween. The past several years have featured some downright nasty weather on Halloween. From the big wind machine to snowflakes… we’ve had some scary stuff. That is not the case today as the weather is picture perfect. We will talk about today’s nice and look long range to the November changes I’m going to keep beating you over the head with. 🙂

Highs will range from the upper 70s to near 80 in the far west and south, to the mid and upper 60s in the far north and northeast. Winds will be gusty with temps dropping into the mid 50s to low 60s by the end of trick or treat hours.

Near record highs return for Tuesday and Wednesday with upper 70s to low 80s. Winds will be very gusty for the first few days of November.

We get a cold front to slide in from the northwest on Thursday. This will bring the threat for some showers and thunderstorms…

gfs

Winds will be very gusty as seasonal air blows in behind this front. The GFS highs for Friday…

gfs-temps

The weekend weather looks really great with a healthy temp gradient setting up from west to east. Readings in the west should hit the 70s with 60s east.

As we continue to look deeper down the road, we find the same look for the middle and end of November. The indicies continue to point in a much colder direction…

ao

That’s a heck of a +PNA being forecast to go along with a -NAO and a neutral look from the EPO. The strongly negative Arctic Oscillation is forecast to really go into the tank as we get deeper into November. That would indicate some serious blocking over the Arctic, and often signals a cold look in the eastern part of the country as we get into the winter season.

Given the above indicies, one would expect the models to keep latching on, and they are. Watch how the ridge goes up in the west, and blocking forms across Greenland and the Arctic, leading to a deepening trough in the east…

canadian

The illustration above is a textbook example of what the indicies show should happen. This continues to match up well with what the CFS weeklies have been cooking up for a while…

cfs

The operational GFS continues to show a substantial change right around next weekend…

gfs-2

A couple of points to reiterate:

  • The changes start during week two of November, then progress from there for the rest of the month.
  • The above setup can lead to an earlier than normal start to winter across Kentucky and much of the central and eastern part of the country.
  • Last week, I mentioned how the current warm pattern resembles this same time around 1950. Record highs of Halloween were replaced by a historic blizzard and the coldest November temps ever recorded here on that Thanksgiving weekend. No two years are ever exactly alike, but there are some similarities to the current setup and forecast setup with that year.
  • I’ve also found another year from that time frame that matches the current one. 1947 also saw the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) go from strongly positive in September to solidly negative in October. This year has surpassed that as the biggest September-October flip on record. For kicks… September 1947 produced 90 degree temps here. October 1947 had middle 80s into the second half of the month. November 1947 saw a switch to much colder with some snow for the middle and end of the month. The following winter produced brutal cold and snow in January and February.
  • If you think I just throw things out for no reason at all, you are sorely mistaken. I do a ton of weather research. To the young weather folks out there… do your homework and learn (I’m still learning every single day) , and you will go places. It’s not all about computer models, that fancy math class from college or apps. It’s also not about going along with what everybody else is saying. Unfortunately, “consensus forecasting” is killing the weather world right now. You can be original and still be right, people. 🙂

Make it a great day and take care.