Last Look at Hurricane Season...-40 in Alaska!

A taste of what is coming for the eastern half of the US and northern Ohio later this winter, especially in January and February...

NASA has just found the first -40 degree temperature of the season yesterday over interior Alaska. This satellite (The Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer) is a radiation-detection imager that can be used for remotely determining cloud cover and surface temperatures by collecting different bands of radiation wavelengths.The coldest regions are shown with the purple/pink areas on this image.  Note: The image is not oriented from north to south.

Just a few random items I recently read about hurricane season courtesy of NOAA and NASA.  Read ahead and check out the images below showing the rainfall from the 2010 season compared to the record setting 2005 season:

The year 2010 was accurately predicted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to be an active one with 14-23 tropical cyclones and 8-14 hurricanes predicted. NOAA's National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami, Fla. subsequently named 19 storms with 12 reaching hurricane strength.

The 2010 Atlantic hurricane season was the most active since the record breaking season of 2005. Hal Pierce of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission, or TRMM satellite team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. created a comparison between the tropical cyclone rainfall occurring in 2005 and 2010. These tropical cyclone rainfall analyses were both made at NASA Goddard using TRMM-based, near-real time Multi-satellite Precipitation data (TMPA).TRMM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japanese space agency JAXA.

The rainfall stayed offshore in two areas this year.

 In 2005, the rainfall was centered over the Gulf of Mexico, Cuba and Florida

Cold Period Upcoming...Get Ready!

We are living on borrowed on "weather time" so to speak.  Temps have trended above normal in Cleveland for most of November.  Now, the pattern is about to make an abrupt change.  This change will more than likely entrench itself through the first two weeks of December.

What do we look at when trying to find these changes from a warm pattern to a cold one?

The first indicators are from way up north in Canada, the North Pole and Russia.  As the highs and lows travel around the earth, they often get into a pattern.  Recently, the highs have been present over the eastern US.  Over the next several weeks, the highs are shifting to the west and the lows (troughs or fronts) are replacing it.  The center low is over northern Canada.  This "Canadian Low" acts as the "center of the wagon wheel" swinging down "Alberta Clippers" with widespread small snowfalls.  See the graphic below.

 

The "warmer" pattern has held off the formation of ice over Hudson Bay

As the pattern changes, the front will be deeper and stronger with lots of cloud cover.

Here are the temperature trends for early this week and into the weekend for the US and Canada.  Notice the "32 degree" marker well north of Ohio in the first graphic then well south in the second.  Much colder for sure!

The bottom line is colder than normal air will stay around through the weekend and into most of next week.  When the snow flies, it will probably accumulate and stay on the ground for a while across most of Northeastern Ohio.

Winter is coming!