We haven’t had any real rain or snow over the past two weeks, but temperatures have regularly fallen into the teens at night. This has resulted in ice skimmed ponds and frozen ground.
A strong disturbance is forecast to track from the Great Lakes across the Adirondacks on Saturday:
By Saturday morning, it should be cold enough for snow over much of the Adirondacks with a decent amount of Great Lakes moisture to work with. Accumulating snow and gusty winds are likely Saturday into early Sunday, with the potential for at least several inches of snow over the western Adirondacks and the High Peaks. In the wake of Saturday’s snow and bluster, temperatures will not get out of the 20s on Sunday.
Extended Outlook:
There is talk of a possible snow event around November 28th/29th. That is almost 10 days away and I’m not sold on that idea yet. But taking a look at the big picture shows signs of hope going into early December.
ECMWF emsembles are showing the split from a single polar vortex near the North Pole into a dual polar vortex pattern displaced further southward by the end of November. That would flip the Arctic Oscillation from its positive phase to its negative phase:
This configuration would allow bitterly cold air to build up over Canada:
ECMWF ensembles are bullish on the flip to a the negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO-) :
I don’t expect a deep plunge into hard core winter by the early days of December, but if the atmosphere maintains a NAO-/AO- pattern long enough, good things will begin to happen for us who like snow! The developing pattern is nearly opposite to what we saw going into last winter. That alone is great news.
