Milder Friday-arctic weekend, Boston nailed again
If your idea of a warm front is 30 degrees, you might be a Minnesotan.
We enjoy a brief Pacific vacation Friday as temperatures push toward the 30 degree mark in southern Minnesota. Savor it. We return to a virtual Arctic Circle this weekend as the next bitter front roars in on gusty winds Saturday.
The weather pattern is stuck across North America again. We've seen this weather movie before. A chilly mean upper air low pressure trough in the eastern United States, a persistent warm ridge in the west.
Minnesota lies in the middle of eastern cold and western warmth on the drier side of the flow. Our weather is status quo, with frequent stabs of arctic high pressure punctuated by briefly milder Pacific breezes. Friday features a brief warm up before the next Big Blue H dives south on bitter breezes Saturday.
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Another deepening low with heavy snow in Boston? A stuck jet stream pattern? Welcome to Extreme Weather 101. Storms pounding the same real estate over and over. That's where we lived last spring and early summer in Minnesota.
As a daily forecast practitioner for the past 30 years, you get a feel for how the seasons are unfolding. Call it pattern recognition. Right now the smart money is on continued dry and colder bias for Minnesota through the rest of February. The latest 16-day Global Forecast System runs support the notion of continued winter. We don't put much stock in these extended runs for day to day precision, but as I wrote yesterday they have done very well with general trends this winter.
Will our weather take a turn in March and April and deliver abundant snow and rain as in recent springs? Who knows. But right now we are preloaded for drought this spring. Yes, I am concerned about a dry start to spring in Minnesota in 2015, but it's still too early to be sure.
Meanwhile we brace for another cold February weekend.
Temperature roller coaster
In winter the next "temperature correction" is never too far away. We enjoy several in the next week. The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts model output below is the most aggressive with Friday's warm up. 37 degrees? Maybe if the stars align just right, but temperatures closer to 30 seem more likely.
Boston, again
Not one, but two major snow events appear likely for Boston in the next week. The first rolls in this weekend. The next aims for the New England coast next Wednesday.
The worst case scenario after record winter snows? A quick warm up with rain. That's something local meteorologists will be watching in Boston in the coming weeks with several inches of water trapped in that 40-inch snow pack.
Stay tuned.