Happy holidays and Merry Christmas everyone! For today, we can expect close to 2 of rain with temperatures rising into and through the 50s, well into tonight. Winds will start to pick up this afternoon and increase to 15-25mph with gusts to around 40mph lasting through the day on Christmas. The usual places that experience enhanced coastal flooding during storms will see some minor coastal flooding from this system. The warm front will lift north of the region later this evening, putting us in between the warm front and the cold front, close to the occlusion zone. Instability will be enhanced and strong forcing by a 60-70kt low level jet will create the possibility for embedded thunderstorms, as well as winds mixing at times from the low level jet to the surface. Models have indicated that the best chance for the worst weather will come late tonight, after dinner time, into early Christmas morning, setting up near eastern Long Island. Temps will top out in the upper 50s to near 60° by the time Santa squeezes down the chimney tonight, then slowly drop as the front moves through sometime Christmas morning. For Christmas, temps will reach the mid 50s early, then drop through the 40s into the 30s throughout the day with continued windy, gusty conditions into Christmas night. High pressure will build in behind the front, and Friday and Saturday both look nice with highs in the 40s. Models get a little mixed at this point but are starting to come together. The GFS has a system skirting to the south of us on Sunday, as a dry cold front moves through dropping temps into the 30s, while the Euro brings a moisture starved frontal system closer, but has been trending towards the drier GFS solution. Both models do agree on another system rolling through the area late Monday night into Tuesday morning which definitely has some snow potential. Well have to watch that. Beyond that its definitely up in the air. There are indications of a storm with snow potential for Long Island around New Years Eve. While the GFS brings a decent system with accumulating snow for the ball drop, the Euro comes in a full day earlier, with a similar storm. Either scenario will have plenty of cold air to work with. Check out the map Ive included showing the GFS temperatures for the western United States for the morning of New Years Eve. Were talking temperatures colder than -50°F in parts of Wyoming! This air mass will also bring possible freezing temperatures to San Fransisco, parts of Los Angeles and San Diego, Las Vegas, and around Phoenix too! Needless to say, if a system develops around NYE, we could see enough cold air, at least on the back side, for snow. Lastly, I wanna talk about the long range. I usually dont like to do that, especially because the models have been so haywire lately, but the latest CFS V2 (Coupled Forecast System Version 2) which models climate, is trending towards a positive NAO for the month of January and I wanted to share my thoughts. What does a positive NAO mean for us? Basically a stronger area of low pressure around Greenland, higher pressure in the central and western Atlantic, and a zonal jet flow throughout much of the country. For the northeast, it could mean wed constantly be in the transition zone between warm air and Arctic air. We will get into an Alberta Clipper pattern, and from time to time, pieces of energy from the Gulf of Mexico will phase with clipper systems to bring significant noreasters to the northeast, and Long Island would always be on the cusp of frozen vs. wet precipitation. For this time frame, its really a crap shoot. Well just have to see how it plays out. Sorry for my long post. Soon, my website will be live and I will keep my blog posts on there, and start to phase away from Facebook for these longer type posts. Ive included: The National Weather Service rainfall estimate through 1pm Christmas Western United States temperatures at 7am 12/31/14 The GFS surface pressure and precipitation type for 7pm New Years Eve The Euro surface pressure and 850mb temperature at 7pm 12/30/14 The CFS V2 most recent 500mb geopotential heights departure from normal Positive vs. negative NAO
Posted on: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 12:30:00 +0000
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