WhiteFox

Not much action here at the weekend. Interesting to see that October looks like being another below average month temperature wise in the US. This follows on from September which was the first below average month since May 2005. I'll post the October map when it is published.

I'm staying in Buffalo on Sunday night. Temperatures are supposed to rise a bit by then, but with enough snow there should still be some lying. Incidentally, I saw on TWC today that Houghton, Michigan, averages 218 inches of snow per year. Not bad for a low lying area! So, any die-hard snow lovers know where to go...

If you've never been to Nigara Falls it's well worth a visit in winter from what I can gather. Talking to some of the people who have worked there for decades, they told me that in winter the spray from the falls often freezes as soon as it touches surfaces in the town itself creating a crystalline landscape. The falls themselves have frozen a few times on the surface, but the water continues to flow underneath. Obviously they don't freeze as hard as shown in the picture very often! Having said that winters can be bitter in that region and I am definitely going to take a weekend up there towards the end of January or February. A good use for all the Marriott points I've been building up! Incidentally, the American Falls were actually drained in 1969. Unbelieveable when you see the volume and force of the water going over the falls. Some great pictures exist of people standing underneath the dry falls. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Dryniagara.jpg Can't get the picture to appear in the post. Same problem as BFTP!

Climate is a different fish from shorter-term synoptics. Why don't heat lows form in the South West US? Why don't they form in other desert/arid regions of the world equally as hot or hotter than the persistent HP to the East of the UK? I'm not saying that desert is forming in Europe, but I'd suspect that heat lows form more easily over Spain thanks to Atlantic influence whereas further North East, there is less such mixing. Other than that, I don't know, but I'm sure someone more expert could tell us! The shifting of patterns elsewhere will impact other regions. Where air is heating and rising in one area, it will inevitably cool and sink in another area. We don't fully understand all of the dynanics of the climate. As for CET and global temperatures, I refer you once again to the trends and your own caveat 'at least for now'. I we experience a few years where the CET is below recent highs then that does not signify a cooling trend. If we start recording CETs and global temperatures below those recorded 30-50 years ago then there may be a case. We are, I am led to understand, approaching a solar minimum which should result in lower temperatures. If the resulting temperatures are higher than those recorded during the last such mimimum then it is strongly suggestive of long-term warming. As for AGW, I still don't know what it stands for!

There is potential for heavy snow in the Minnesota Arrow as well. Some forecasts gong for 1 foot+ thanks to lake effect snow from Lake Superior. An early taste of winter! Chicago still looking for something close to a record low maximum, although it looks like being close. I'm driving to Toronto via the Catskills and Buffalo on Sunday. Hopefully there may be some whiteness on the higher elevations, but I don't think it will be up to much by the time it reaches Western New York. Small chance of lake effect snow around Buffalo, but temperatures look marginal. Touch and go Friday to Saturday I think.

Of course not. But global warming (I won't add AGW because I have not an idea what it stands for; some new acronym that's clearly in vogue) makes such temperatures more likely than ever before. As for the USA, the cooler September followed on from one of the warmest summers on record, which in itself followed on from one of the warmest winters on record. Altough I don't want to bang the drum too much, nobody is sure of the cause and effect here. I lean towards the warming climate altering the synoptics which in turn creates further warming. Plucking the odd contrary reading from a long line of stastistics, the outlier if you will, does not break the trend. There is no such thing as a perfect linear trned with regards to temperatures, but the trend is clearly up. Is that spin cyclonic or anti-cyclonic?

As for Lake-Effect snow, Chicago is not best placed for such events. Sitting on the East side of Lake Michigan, and prevailing winds are from the West, so winds need to be NEly to Ely cause lake effect snow. Most of the 38 inch annual snowfall in Chicago comes from frontal snow. Places like Northern Indiana and Michigan are much more susceptible to lake-effect snow. I'd say that this site has a more realistic forecast.

Perhaps a re-definition of terms? Zonality = Conveyer of Low pressures from West to East. Atlantic Dominated = Winds predominately from the West, particularly South-West to West. As for the coming winter, if you get sick of wonting winter, then move. I'm looking forward to this winter for the first time in many years. Of course, that is assuming that we don't get three equivalents of last January...

Of course, and in the absence of perfect information we have to make assumptions all of the time. It is the level of assumptions we have to make which will influence predicted outcomes. One of these areas is of course SSTs. As we can never have access to perfect information there will always be errors in all forecasts, which probably brings us back full circle to some of the original points! I don't think there will ever exist a time when we can give any forecast for a few months ahead with any certainty other than probabilities. We've seen how difficult it is to forecast days ahead past day 5, so the best that any other methods can hope to achieve, given that they are governed by the same statistical laws as conventional models, is to provide implied probabilities of patterns rather than specifics. That's not to say that different methods do not have any value. One thing I enjoy about Steve Murr's and GP's forecasts is the way they re-analyse using short- to medium-term forecasts and explain what would need to happen for the forecasts to return true. Measurements will improve both in accuracy and multitude, but it is impossible to measure everything everywhere at the same time. Sampling will remain the boundaries of accuracy.

The problem is that you are assuming that statistical analysis only involves looking at basic variables for the previous years. It's worth pointing out that the complex teleconnections used by Steve and GP are based on statistical analysis. It just emphasises the point that statistics is key in every branch of science.

A right old ding-dong! On the subject of LRFs, I think the accuracy is currently debatable. There are some very interesting concepts though; I'd never heard of teleconnections beyond the NAO before reading Net-Weather. An interesting case in point with regards to accuracy is to look at the hurricane season forecasts for this year. The team in the US predicted substantially above average activity in the Atlantic basin back in May. At the beginning of September they scaled back the forecast significantly. Last week, they scaled it back once more to 'average'. As Steve says in his signature, it is better to adapt a wrong forecast and try and work out what went wrong. The guys at the hurricane centre are pinpointing excessive wind shear fuelled by a minor el-nino event. No doubt they will try and incorporate this next year. As it stands, their forecasts were highly inaccurate this season with no major hurricances (so far) making landfall in the US.

Looks that way. The same weather is heading for the MidWest US

Some pretty good agreement in the Ensembles for the upcoming cold-shot. Firstly Minneapolis: Then Chicago feels the cold. Perhaps some early snow for the windy city? The really cold air doesn't quite make it East to New York, but I think that in the mountains of Pennsylvania and upstate New York, as well as perhaps lower lying areas like Buffalo and Syracuse, there will be some very parky weather:

From one extreme to the other! Just shows what a continental climate can be like. Take a look at some of these charts for next week: 500hPA: 850: Thickness: Earlier this week, some of the areas under the -10 isotherm were basking in temperatures in the 30s!

The cold front duly arrived today. Last night, it was rather humid and quite sultry. I was able to wear shorts when I went outside. This morning was also quite warm, with temperatures of about 22oC. It was one of those days where the maximum was set in the morning; a few rumbles of thunder heralded the arrival of the cold front and after lunch it was actually rather cold. It looks like tomorrow's maximum will be about 60oF whic I guess is about 15 or 16oC. I love the active cold fronts here!

Several records have been broken today for high temperatures. Parts of Kansas recorded temperatures in the high nineties, about 36oC today (Tuesday). As for Chicago, we had an almighty severe thunderstorm last night. A storm passed over at about 1pm, and lightning and thunder continued to rumble around through the afternoon. Then, at about 8Pm, the storms gathered strength and we were treated to about three hours of constant lightning and very loud thunder. At about 10pm we lost power and they had to give us glowsticks to find our way to the rooms! It looks like temperatures will be returning to normal later this week. A cold front is forecast to come from the Northwest through tomorrow giving a high of around 67oF (20oC) in Chicago, down from around 82oF today.

Had to go for Fraser. All great entries. Wibs shot was excellent, compostion wise very good and the light was great. However, Fraser's shot took compostion just that bit further. The rule of thirds is important in photography, but the depth of field in capturing the building set against the sky is just stunning. Top efforts all round.

The Northern Midwest was pretty chilly last week. I was in Minneapolis, and the temperature on Tuesday maxed at 50oF (about 11oC), which is about 15oF+ below average. There was also a ground frost on Wednesday morning, and I believe that air frosts have been recorded in Northern Minnesota, northern Wisconsin and Northwest Michigan. Northern New England also recorded the first air frosts recently. As for snow, the mountains in the North West, Montana, and parts of western North Dakota have already recroded falls. This is not particularly unusual, but it's always nice to see on the map if you're a snow-lover! What is more unusual is the outbreak of tornadoes associated with an active cold front yesterday. Normally September is a quiet month for such outbreaks, with most tornadoes resulting from Tropical depressions and hurricanes making landfall. November is more commonly associated with such tornadoes with cold fronts. I'm hoping for an interesting winter!

Nice to see the snow starting to arrive! Snow fell in the mountains of Oregon yesterday. A great picture on the weather Channel of a guy in shorts and flip-flops walking through snow! Today, snow has been falling in Montana and is forecast to cross into North Dakota. What a difference a few days makes! Some towns are forecast to have a max of around 6 or 7oC over the next couple of days. Down from from the mid twenties recently. I know that just about every year sees this happen in the US and Canada, but as a snow lover it's a dream seeing snow on the map in September!

Still time for Florence to strengthen, but recent weakening as a result of shear has taken the pressure up to 1000MB and wind speeds down to 65mph. Forecasts still suggesting potential for strengthening to hurricane, but it looks like much above Cat 2 is unlikely (although not impossible!). Shear is currently coming in from the South-East weakening the outflow. No defniable eye has yet been observed. Weather centres over here are calling it the "Year of the Shear" due to the amount of storms which have been weakened by wind shear!

The first hints of the arrival of fall are noticeable this week. I have been in Albany in upstate NY and took the train back along the Hudson Valley. A few flashes of red were just about visible on some of the smaller trees. I haven't seen New England in the Fall yet, but I'll certainly take a look this year. New York city is slowly cooling after the baking summer season. It's still up to about 27/8 C during the day, but nights are much more bearable at arounf 18-20 C. A very pronounced cold front is currently working it's way in from the North West; Northern Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan all recorded air frosts last night with Minnesota recording -5C. My uncle always did say you'd freeze your backside off up there!

It's been a while since I blogged. I now have an apartment in New York. Just out in Queens with a good subway link to Manhattan. Work is already taking me around the US. Spent a fair bit of time in Chicago which I love. I'm currently in California about 40 miles North of LA. One of the perks of this job is that I can go for a drive once I finish work in the afternoon. So far this week I've been to Santa Barbara, Malibu and Beverly Hills. It's interesting being in what is pretty close to being a desert climate. In Burbank on Monday the termperature was in the mid-thirties. Here in Camarillo closer to the coast it is a much more pleasant 25 or so. Humidity is very low. The sun is very strong though which you don't realise. Even with spf 30 I still got tanned! Anyway, back to Chicago next week followed by Minneapolis the week after. The first hint of Autumn approaching in the NOrthern states with 60oFs starting to appear on the Weather Channel. I can't wait for winter!

Fair enough. Seems to have totally vanished now. The nearest cold pool is to the west of Spain or way north of Scotland.

Unless I'm reading the map wrong, I see no cold anomaly to the West of the British Isles? It looks average to above average to me!

Such lows are a vain hope here in New York! Forecast minimum tonight is about 21oC and that's before the humidity really rises later this week! Last weekend we had highs of 31 and lows of 27 under cloudy skies and thunderstorms. Later this week we're looking at up to 35 during the day and lows of 27 at night. The Bermuda high pumps some really uncomfortable conditions up the East coast! I'd be interested to see what the corresponding average max/min temperatures are for July in New York.