Current Arctic Pattern: Possible Relaxation and Storm on 1/4

[Boston Bulldog]

It's damn cold out there. Arctic air coming straight from north of Baffin Island is the currently locked in thanks to a +NAO and a variety of Pacific indices. The duration and intensity of the arctic cold is rather unprecedented and an atmospheric anomaly when compared to other cold snaps. Long story short, this cold will be tough to remove. It is also suppressing the various clipper systems rolling through to our south. For the time being, it will be cold, windy and dry.

In a week, however, this arctic regime will move out or relax a little, and due to the extreme nature of what we are under, the atmosphere will "freak out" a little. This type of atmospheric shakeup is being shown on the models and indexes in the form of a major winter storm. All models (GFS, EURO, CMC) are showing a huge storm forming somewhere along the east coast. Will it be out to sea? Will it hug the coast and dump on us? Will it cut inland and deliver a rainstorm? These details we do not know yet.

What we do know is that the arctic regime will relax a little around 1/4, and a subsequent major storm will form. This is a given, now it is time to see where it goes.

Here is the current GFS.
GFS 144.jpg
GFS 162.jpg
GFS 174.jpg
GFS 186.jpg

It shows our best case scenario. There is widespead model support for this outcome, but we are a week out. As most of us know, this scenario will move around. Someone, somewhere will get nailed. Hopefully its New England, and not Newfoundland or Cleveland.

Time for an exciting week of model watching!

[Boston Bulldog]

The storm will be a juicy Gulf slow that splits into two parts. We are looking for the developing storm to split earlier rather than later. Once the split occurs, the low will race north and develop over the gulf stream. An early split entails the storm being closer to the coast: i.e more snow.

[bdfreetuna]

Saw this pop up on GFS too. Always exciting to see those purples and reds.

[Rowsdower]

Could be. It could also stay cold and dry for the next two weeks per the latest GFS run.

[Glenn]

I get nervous when it looks this good, this far out.

Regardless, will be fun to keep an eye on!

I called my "neighbor" (he's about a mile away) and snowmobiling buddy yesterday up in VT. We chatted about the cold and he was calling for a January thaw based on how cold it is in December. This guy is a lifelong Vermonter, so he's seen a winter or two in his 70+ years.

[Boston Bulldog]

Storm keeps on showing up, but much farther east. The mid level evolution shows that today's solutions are not far from a hit, and small H5 improvements would lead to a much faster phase that would pull the storm West. The model windshield wiper continues. The biblical hit of 12z yesterday is predictably gone, but a major storm threat still looms.

Most importantly a storm is still being shown and is within reasonable distance of trending back in west. For day 6, that's reasonable enough to keep eyes perked up.

[Boston Bulldog]

Here comes the west trend. Absolute bombs on guidance too. Ensemble members are dropping below an unheard of 950mb SLP. That would be a record for an extratropical cyclone in this region.

[Rowsdower]

So far only seeing it on CFS, waiting for GFS to update.

But yeah, damn its like a freight train the next two weeks. Several smaller systems and then one big nuke at the end. Problem is all that action is loaded into 5-7+ days out so still a lot of uncertainty.

[Glenn]

Any links to GFS or Euro models at this point?

[Quietman]

GFS 18z run is looking good, but this will change many times. We can only hope.

http://coolwx.com/ptype/