December 2 11:13 PM

On November  21, very few people saw winter coming at all for the US.  One way to understand what was going on was the Natural Gas Market  which hit a low of  3.27 on Monday, Nov  21 because most of the weather vendors (not this one) were saying that December would not get cold. That was not what was forecasted here.

The facts are clear, that since the PDO switched, Decembers have been cold in the US and this will be the 4th in a row. The map below outlines the mistake I made..assuming the cold that opened the month in the southeast would be where it was  aimed, but next week it aims south, then comes east. But its coming, believe me and the plains next week will see 2, perhaps 3 separate waves of snow, the last one the furthest east may affect the Northeast. The middle one looks like a rt  66 special from the Texas Panhandle to the lower Lakes, with the 3rd one mainly in the Appalachians.  But the period Dec 8-20 looks cold from the plains into the east, after the front 5 are cold on the plains. The latest GFS run is very cold right through to a week before Christmas and that includes the eastern US, where a fight between the core of the cold and the warmth that will try to return may up the snowcover ante north of the Mason Dixon line.

The 3 stage snow event with the advance of cold looks like this (courtesy Dr. Ryan Maue)

Storm one by Sunday morning

Swath from two by Tuesday morning

Swath from the third possibility

By next Saturday night, the lake effect with the outbreak leaves snow like this:

But a simple map explanation and a realization that 2 weeks ago, many had no cold of significance in the cards for December, certainly not next weeks in the south and what may come further northeast later on. The Market is not lying as to why that kind of surge occurred, it's because the cold was not expected by others. The map below outlines the basic gist.

I am not going to  keep harping on this, but this is what happened. On the other hand, a call for the 4th in a row cold December from last summer was not a bad idea, and in the end, while the northeast may be a bit warmer,  the real bust will be how cold it got.. colder than even I had, further southwest. But in the end, there is some rough sledding coming into the holidays.

One has to remember, that all these cases flip to cold for December, but there is a variance as to when they do it.

In any case, the first week ending next Saturday shows this:

But cold comes east after that for week two. Total all this up and only New England is above normal, the rest of the nation is cold. Notice where the cold is centered week two and with good reason.

Temperatures

500 mb valid next Friday night:

then the following Saturday

That ridge in Spain leaves this looking overdone over the Lakes and given the ridge pulling back, more western trough, southeast ridge like we have early next week may show up.

This, though, is going to result in some cold indexes off this model run.

ciao for now