A Look Ahead

Winter is keeping its hold on most of the nation at the moment. Take a look at the temperature departure from normal for last week:

Temperatures last week were well below normal east of the Rockies. Image from @WBAnalytics #cold pic.twitter.com/lvInZ8VsJW
— Jordan Overton (@JordanoWX) January 13, 2015

As you can see, places east of the Rocky Mountains were well below normal. This was all thanks to cold Arctic air from the north.

Coming up this weekend, a change in the pattern looks to occur. Take a look at the temperature trend for the next 7 days:

Image from WeatherBELL Models

Notice how the temperatures start to warm and moderate. We could see highs up to 60 on Saturday and Sunday! Skies will be on the mostly sunny side, and winds should remain fairly light through at least the weekend.

The big question everyone has is how long is the warm weather going to last? Well, as of the time of this post, the next week or two look fairly quiet and calm. When I look into the extended range, one of the things I look for is consistency. I want to give you an example. Take a look at a pressure map from the European Weather Model. We will look at the same forecast hour (6AM January 21):.

This is this mornings model run:

Image from: WeatherBELL Models

The thing I want you to look for in this picture is the area in the blue box. Now take a look at yesterday's run:

Image from: WeatherBELL Models

Big differences, as you can see. Yesterdays run was developing a Low pressure system while this mornings run keeps High pressure in control. The run to run consistency in the extended range is nowhere near where it needs to be to make a accurate forecast this far out. In most cases, the closer to time the event is the better agreement the data is; therefore, a higher confidence forecast can be produced.

What is my point in saying all this? It's hard to tell you exactly what is going to happen when the run to run consistency is nowhere close as shown above!

My Forecast: I think we go into a calm and mild pattern for at least a week or two. Things could get interesting towards the end of the month/early February.

Follow Jordan Overton on Twitter: @JordanoWX