November Forecast

You want more blasts of cold air? I think you came to the right place. The pattern will favor a number of cold fronts with air coming south from Canada through at least mid month and possibly beyond.

What about rain? Believe it or not, this is typically the wettest month of year according to the 30 year average. It's not by much, but it's wetter than April! We'll have rain Thursday, but beyond that, rainfall looks average to below average for a while.

Below is a bird eye view of the northern hemisphere looking directly down. I want you to notice the reds showing up through the far eastern Pacific ocean northward into Alaska. These are positive height anomalies and shows you where ridging sets up. When a ridge sets up in this portion of the world, it dumps cold air into the central and eastern United States. Look at the blues! Those are negative height anomalies and shows you where troughing is setting up.

Late Sunday - This is a very cold pattern!

By the 18th, there are still signs of the ridge in the far eastern Pacific just off the west coast of the U.S. This could still deliver more cold air intrusions. However, see that are of blue southwest of Alaska? If that moves further east, it will cut off our main cold air source and our air masses will come from the Pacific. If it backs further to the west, it will pump the ridge more into Alaska and our air mass source will be off the arctic and Canada. This is something very important to watch.

NOAA's 8-14 day outlook shows that pattern with the warm west (Alaska) and cold east configuration. While I say warm in Alaska, it really isn't. It's just warmer than their averages due to the strong ridging. It's still very cold air up there.

NOAA seems to believe there could be a bit of a change by November 16-29 with odds tilting towards above average temperatures. However, if it's warm in Alaska (relatively speaking) it usually is below average central and east. Look at the chances of above average temperatures decrease as you go east of the Rockies! It will be interesting to see how much of this area ends up above or below average through the end of the month.