Wow! This ECMWF ensemble for December 18th is a serious kick in the gut:
Lots of problems for us, including:
1. Strong Polar Vortex (PV) over eastern Siberia
2. No hint of a North American Polar Vortex
3. No hit of a Greenland based NAO-
4. Screaming Pacific Jet stream
This pattern leaves NO path for Arctic air to penetrate into southern Canada or the United States. That’s a BIG problem. All the cold-crazed weather weenies calling for hard core winter by Christmas are going to look like major fools. Even my modest call from December 3rd is probably going to bite the dust.
How will this affect winter going forward?
The lack of North American cold air over the next couple of weeks is going to stunt the buildup of snow cover in Canada, which in turn will stunt the buildup of snow cover over the United States though the end of December and perhaps beyond. This is very discouraging indeed!
