Saturday, September 17, 2011

Working On the Winter Weather Forecast 2011/2012 - PART 1 (Jan/Feb 2000 Data)

The above map is the daily January 2000 snow cover map. You kinda get an idea of how the weather pattern unfolded.


Next is the daily February 2000 snow cover map above. Note how the leftover snowfall melted early in the month and never returned, denoting generally above normal temperatures.

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As far as temperatures for January 2000 were concerned, here is a nice graphic for that:

According to the National Climatic database, here is a brief breakdown of the following weather patterns for the month:

The month began with a ridge dominating the eastern third of the country and an upper-level trough over the west. This trough quickly moved to the northeast only to be replaced by another. Around 10 January, there was a pattern shift and the western third of the country came under the influence of an upper-level ridge while the east was dominated by an upper-level trough with the mean axis just off the Atlantic east coast.

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For February 2000, precipitation pattern proved to be above normal as denoted by this graphic:

And the February 2000 temperature pattern was just as robust...
Check this map out below.



Again, the National Climatic database had this to say about the weather pattern for February 2000.

The upper-air pattern remained progressive and active for most of the month with several deep, storm-producing troughs crossing the country from west to east. Pacific-borne systems dominated the month with limited intrusions of cooler arctic air.
A mean upper-level ridge in the central portion of the country provided warmer than normal temperatures from coast to coast with much warmer than normal temperatures from the central Rockies to the Ohio Valley and from the western Great Lakes to Texas.

This is just Part 1 of my series on forecasting the winter weather forecast for 2011/2012. I'm using the archived data from the Jan/Feb 2000 winter.

In future posts, I'll be presenting data from September 2000 - March 2001. This is the last time we had a significant back to back La Nina episode.

While I'm not saying events will happen exactly as then, it will be interesting to see how the overall weather pattern develops. Watch for these patterns as early as October.

Therefore, in Part 2 of my next Winter Weather discussion, I'll be looking at the overall weather pattern for the month of October 2001 in particular.

MS

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