Cold Air Dam Leaking. Will It Break?

All the cold air has been bottled up into western Canada and Alaska over the last several weeks. A flow off the Pacific has been damming that cold air, but there are changes at last!

We're already seeing small pieces of cold air drain into the United States and that dam is leaking. Will it completely break and flood the United States with arctic air? If you're a cold air lover, it looks promising for bigger chunks of that cold air to dive south starting next week and especially the end of the month. Will the cold air intrusions lock and hold or will it be in and out causing a roller coaster in temperatures? That remains to be seen, but at least we're seeing cold air on the playing field. Does that mean snow? It's impossible to predict that far out, but at least 1 necessary ingredient (cold) will be available.

Look at this birds eye view of the northern hemisphere. A strong trough has been located over Alaska keeping it very cold there. There are signs the trough begins to migrate west and pumps a ridge over Alaska. That helps drain the cold air south.

5000 foot temperature anomalies on the Euro Ensemble day 10-15. I like to look at this for temperature trends. The cold is centered in the plains with some warming near Alaska and Canada. This is what you want to see if cold air is your thing.

6-10 day temperature forecast has much of the central and eastern U.S with below average temperatures

8-14 day outlook the same.