Greg Fangel wrote: > > You must know the answer....where's winter? The prediction from > noaa was for a colder than normal and normal snow season this > winter. Maybe I'm just impatient.....I want it now!
Hi Greg, Yes, we're all wondering where winter is (well, 30 inches of it was in Willmar MN last week, but that's not important now). Here's my take on the situation: There are still long-term atmospheric signals that suggest that the majority of the "meteorological winter" (Dec-Jan-Feb) will end up to be colder than normal over the Midwest region. The type of pattern that should begin to form within the 1-2 weeks is a more northwesterly flow aloft pattern, which opens the door for the arctic air masses that are pooling up in Canada/Alaska right now (the *high* temperature yesterday at Fairbanks AK was -25 F...and it's -10 to -20 F across a lot of the Canadian prairie provinces): http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sfc_wcan.html > I heard that the waters in the Pacific were colder and back to > normal so the El Nino effect would be minimal. What's happening? > Is this weather "that" abnormal or do I just have high > expectations? It's true that we are in an "ENSO-neutral" period, so the dreaded El Nino / La Nina effects should not plague us this winter. However, the atmosphere has other weird oscillations and patterns -- and I think this recent warm month was a short-term anomaly that will soon be compensated for by a swing in the opposite direction. By this time next week, things should start to look more like the December we all know and love. Anyway, I share your frustration. I need to keep reminding myself that here in Madison we normally don't get good snow until mid- December anyway -- so it's still a bit early. The only thing winter-like right now for me is the clatter of my studded winter tires as I cycle to work every day... -Scott (wondering whether to curse or celebrate the current 59 F temperature outside) -- Scott Bachmeier University of Wisconsin - Madison / SSEC / CIMSS mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~scottb chmod a+x /bin/laden rm -rf /bin/laden
