2008.12.27
Showers, maybe even some storms, on a mild Sunday
This is what's coming at us for Sunday ... though it probably won't look quite this fierce. Today, this squall line produced more than 100 wind damage reports in the nation's mid-section, but there were only a few tornado reports in northeast Missouri and far northwest Illinois (areas that were seeing ice and snow just a few days ago, and will again soon). A Pacific cold front is plowing into mild, moist air that is built in ahead of it, and that is resulting in some winter thunderstorms. Do not be surrpised to hear a rumble or two on Sunday with a few of the more vigorous showers, but overall lack of instability and upper dynamics will probably not allow for severe storms in our region. Still, highs in the upper 50s and 60s are likely.
This front is a step toward pushing out the unseasonably mild weather, but a real change to more seasonable cold won't come until about New Year's Day as the atmospheric plumbing shifts around a bit and some Arctic air begins to drain in from Canada. There is a weekend storm system we'll have to keep a close watch on to see if it can throw moisture into cold air for wintry precipitation. Still several days of details to monitor on that.
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I have heard more than one meteorologist (one of them local) talk about what happened between the years of 1983 and 1985 in the southeast (our area included).
The summer of 1983, we had all time record heat (up to that point.) 18 months later, in January of 1985, we had all time record cold(-11 degrees in Roanoke).
They seem to be implying that there is some type of correlation between those events and thusly, we'll be looking at a very cold January considering how hot the summer of 2007 was for this area.
Could you explain (or debunk) that theory for us?
Comment by Brandon R. — December 28, 2008 @ 10:12 pm
I don't know if I have the data on hand to immediately debunk or explain this now, but I have a hard time believing anything that tries to link weather 18 months apart as an absolute lock to happen. My immediate reaction would be to point to the early 1950s, when many of the summers were very hot, and the winters were relatively mild. No extreme cold followed extreme summers like 1954 some 18 months later. I've searched our records before for some correlations, and there aren't really many to make between winter and summer. Some hot summers are followed by cold winters, some by mild winters. Major oceanic and atmospheric oscillations like the El Nino Southern Oscillation, Eastern Pacific Oscillation and North Atlantic Oscillation seem to be the prime drivers of our seasonal trends, and those can flip between summer and winter, certainly between summers and winters 18 months apart. So I would say I'm skeptical, and looking at the weather pattern now, I certainly don't see the full mass of the polar vortex plunging into the United States the way it did in 1985. That was a once-in-a-century event (1899 being the last one).
Comment by kevinmyatt — December 29, 2008 @ 10:26 am
Not only did the showers fizzle out, we really only got some drizzle and very light showers out of the front. I won't complain about the limited moisture we got because it helps...but more would have been better.
Comment by Other John — December 29, 2008 @ 11:47 am