This figure above shows there has finally been a significant stratospheric warming event in the last few weeks – the temperature of the upper atmosphere has warmed over 30 degrees Celsius since mid December. You can see just how cold the stratosphere was for the past several months – a finding which is not generally conducive to winter weather.
This warming should displace the polar vortex, or markedly cold pool of air residing far to our north, farther south and put more arctic air on the table for the United States, something that has been non-existent for the last few months. This will increase our chances at snow. The first threat looks to be around the January 8-12th time frame, but I want to see a little more consistency among the models before I discuss it in more detail. More later…
DocTooch
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