sNOw

It would be a miracle to get any meaningful snow as I look at all the data today. I have never thrown in the towel so early, but I'm inching closer and closer. For snow lovers, it's a disaster. There's no other way to put it. It's bad no matter what you look at right now.

I have to remind myself that it only takes one storm to produce a few inches of snow and that can happen all the way into the middle of March. However, whenever the models show the cold coming, it takes it away. If the cold comes, it just won't stick around.

In a previous blog post, I showed the EPO (Eastern Pacific Oscillation). It was forecast to go negative and stay negative. That's a strong signal for cold air as the Alaskan/western Canadian ridge builds. Now, that ridge gets wiped out in less than a week and the trough builds again up there, blocking the cold air from coming south. I know many love to look at the NAO (North Atlantic Oscillation) and the AO (Arctic Oscillation), but it's the EPO this winter which is crushing winter weather lovers hopes. I want to remind everyone it snowed in Arkansas last week and the NAO and AO were BOTH POSITIVE. Conventional wisdom says they both need to be negative, but that's not always the case.

Look at the EPO from the evening run.

The EPO is negative and that brings the cold. However, it goes back to positive and we'll get flooded with Pacific air next week. Expect very mild weather.

This is the current negative EPO with the ridge going up over Alaska. The cold comes south and there's a battle where it meets the ridge over the Gulf of Mexico. This was discussed in previous blog posts. The battle ground will be situated from northeast Texas, through southern Arkansas northeastward this week.

There it is! The heavy rainfall south with lighter amounts north over the next 7 days. More than 5'' could fall over southern Arkansas with much lighter amounts away from that battle zone.

Wednesday afternoon, a strong front will be over the area with heavy rainfall. The warm sector may work into far southeast and eastern Arkansas for a very brief period of time. There could be a strong to perhaps severe thunderstorm at that time. The rest of the state is a cold rain with nothing frozen.

By next weekend, the trough is back over Alaska and the western United States. The cold air source is completely shut off. We'll get flooded with mild Pacific air.

Summary, it will be cold and rainy this week, but nothing unusual. The source of the cold air will get turned off late this week and we're back to very mild weather. How mild? Tough to say this far out, but I think it will get your attention! In other words, well above average temperatures. Once again, there are signs late this month of another change with the ridge going up into Alaska and draining cold air south. What's the saying? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me a dozen times, you're the GFS. Something like that.