Star Date 9 January 2017 Monday
Captain's Log
Good morning!
This 3rdArctic blast of the Winter season is about to retreat the Northeast giving way to a January thaw for most of the Country over the next couple of weeks. The cold will build in Europe, Siberia and Alaska so look out U.S. in a couple weeks as it will return!
Rainfall and Sierra snowfall is going to approach epic levels in California with the next 2 weeks trending near record wet and snowy - most in at least 26 years on top of the wettest start to Winter in 6 years. Much of the U.S. will be wet or white over the next two weeks with the most national precipitation in over 26 years.
Snowfall later this week shows some let up for California as the system heads across the Central U.S. Despite the milder temps in the East - need to watch for some snow to ice scenarios toward the weekend.
Winter to date (1 Dec - 9 Jan) has been the coldest in 3 years with national temperatures 1 degree below average and the greatest year-over-year change toward colder weather in 16 years. National snowfall is up a whopping +89% over last year and +4% above average. While precipitation hasn't been quite as wet as last year, it's still 4th wettest of the past 26 years to date. And get ready to be shocked when you get your heating bill as national heating demand is up 29% vs last year. Every 1F colder can bring a 5% or more increase in your heating bill so nationally those bills are up +35% vs a year ago.
With this past weekend's Deep South snow event the U.S. had 70% snow cover - a near record for January.
Globally the oceans are much colder than last year when we were in the midst of an epic El Nino pattern - not this year. A couple of cycles look interesting for later in January with -AO and an MJO cycle favoring our 4th blast of Arctic air likely.
For baby Angelina Kirk fans out there - she turned 1 year old this past week! Boy does time fly.
Have a great week folks! - Capt Kirk out.
Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for daily updates.
This 3rdArctic blast of the Winter season is about to retreat the Northeast giving way to a January thaw for most of the Country over the next couple of weeks. The cold will build in Europe, Siberia and Alaska so look out U.S. in a couple weeks as it will return!
Rainfall and Sierra snowfall is going to approach epic levels in California with the next 2 weeks trending near record wet and snowy - most in at least 26 years on top of the wettest start to Winter in 6 years. Much of the U.S. will be wet or white over the next two weeks with the most national precipitation in over 26 years.
Snowfall later this week shows some let up for California as the system heads across the Central U.S. Despite the milder temps in the East - need to watch for some snow to ice scenarios toward the weekend.
Winter to date (1 Dec - 9 Jan) has been the coldest in 3 years with national temperatures 1 degree below average and the greatest year-over-year change toward colder weather in 16 years. National snowfall is up a whopping +89% over last year and +4% above average. While precipitation hasn't been quite as wet as last year, it's still 4th wettest of the past 26 years to date. And get ready to be shocked when you get your heating bill as national heating demand is up 29% vs last year. Every 1F colder can bring a 5% or more increase in your heating bill so nationally those bills are up +35% vs a year ago.
With this past weekend's Deep South snow event the U.S. had 70% snow cover - a near record for January.
Globally the oceans are much colder than last year when we were in the midst of an epic El Nino pattern - not this year. A couple of cycles look interesting for later in January with -AO and an MJO cycle favoring our 4th blast of Arctic air likely.
For baby Angelina Kirk fans out there - she turned 1 year old this past week! Boy does time fly.
Have a great week folks! - Capt Kirk out.
Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for daily updates.