***MARK VOGAN'S FEBRUARY OUTLOOK FOR UK AND EUROPE IS OUT, SEE WEATHER TALK BELOW FOR THE DETAILS!
With a huge temperature contrast of super cold air flowing into the Northern Rockies and Plains this morning thanks to a strong Arctic high over Alberta and Saskatchewan and warm, tropical air flowing north from the Gulf of Mexico and merging with a thermal boundary across the central Plains region today, a low is developing over the Southern Rockies and this will cut northeastwards towards the Northeast tomorrow and Wednesday but as it does so, the cold air will push further southwards into Texas as the high over western Canada builds south intensifying the storm system. As the low pressure system winds up, it's wings of capturing both cold to the north and west and warm, moist air to the south spread and grow stronger. The infusion of these conflicting air masses raise the thermal contrast and thus injects fuel into the storm. The storm itself feeds as it ingests greater quantities of cold, warmth and moisture and this creates that stronger storm. The track of the storm means, anywhere that finds themselves northwest of the center, they will see blizzard conditions with winds aligning over them out of the northeast as a deepening Arctic high to the northwest and deepening low pressure system to the southeast means the fight zone rages in between, the atmosphere's way of finding balance!
There is concern that whilst a swath of locally 6-10 inches is possible across the Northern Plains from Rapid City, SD to Minneapolis today and snowshowers through the central and even southern Plains, the "bigtime snows" will set up from east of Denver and focus a band of blizzard-condition snowfall over Chicago and up into Detroit and southern Ontario tomorrow and Wednesday as winds align. As of this time, the city of Chicago appears to be inside the atmospheric fightzone and a blizzard of potentially historic proportion looks highly likely. As much as 15 to 22″ is possible in and around Chicago whilst tornadic thunderstorms and flooding rains is likely for the Southern States.
Stay tuned for more, updated information as well as videos coming up shortly.
Temperatures dipped overnight and early in to Monday morning prompting the City of Toronto to issue an extreme cold weather alert. The warning was cancelled Monday morning.
WHAT A DIFFERNCE IN ALBERTA AND SASKATCHEWAN!
It's been WARM across much of Western Canada last week but would you believe that after experiencing mid-winter temperatures as balmy as 13C or +55F in Calgary last Thursday it's now a stunning 40C (72F) COLDER with a current reading of -27C or -17F. If you think that's amazing, the city actually saw readings back down below -20C as quickly as Sunday from it's warm high's of Thursday. A high of only -17C or +1F is expected today. As for Edmonton to the north, after seeing 9C or 48F last Thursday, it's currently -30C or -22F with surrounding areas registering close to -40C (-40F). Today's high in Edmonton is expected to reach only -19C or -2F and plunge to -32C (-26F) this evening.
The City of Saskatoon in central Saskatchewan also warmed to abnormally high levels on Thursday with a high topping 2C or 36F but by Sunday, the "high" was a stunningly lower -25C or -13F, that's a remarkable drop between highs in only 3 days!. It's currently a cold -35C or -31F with a low likely reading cooler earlier this morning. Today's forecast high is a cold, but much more appropriate -25C or -13F for late January in the heart of the continent where winter's are meant to be cold!.
The classic La Nina upper-level pattern is continuing to show itself across our part of the world as well as further across the continent with cold air stationed over the mainland but isn't particularly far away from us. In fact whilst Glasgow and Edinburgh remain mild with off and on showers and breezy conditions and temps in the 6-8C range, London is cooler with 4-6C and over the weekend it struggled to get much above freezing.
Today, Paris is barely 1C whilst much of the inland areas of Europe will be at or slightly below freezing and nights not much off the daytime high thanks to clouds, rain and snow. It's a fairly grey, damp and cold picture across much of Europe, colder still as can be expected across European Russia and Scandinavia with highs in the -5 to -10C range and lows perhaps -10 to -15C from Oslo to St Petersburg but close to seasonal averages given it's the heart of winter.
The cold lingers across the southern half of Europe as a low is set to present a region from southern France across to Italy, Greece and Turkey with stormy conditions with low elevation rain, high elevation snow and windy conditions.
Britain remains mild with an active Atlantic dominated pattern. With mild and stormy weather in western Europe, colder for the central, eastern and southern regions, this is very La Nina-like and this setup appears likely to hold for much of thr remainder of the winter!
What Makes A Bad Winter: Snow or Cold?
THE REMAINDER OF WINTER APPEARS TO REMAIN MILD AND ATLANTIC DOMINATED OVERALL FOR UK BUT THIS DOESN'T MEAN OFF AND ON COLD AND SNOW CAN'T RETURN TO BRITAIN!
As we enter the final "Meteorological winter" month of February, January ends overall fairly mild after a cold, snowy start to 2011 which followed the record-cold December.
The La Nina pattern is beginning to show itself as we enter winter's end game for Europe as the cold continues to hold over Germany eastwards into the Ukraine and this cold which is of a moderate brand and not extreme will bleed south towards the Mediterannean countries which look likely to see the greatest departures below normal for the final month of winter and even into March. The persistent cold and blasts of snow will linger for areas that have been cold throughout the season and that are typically cold. Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki have seen a brutal November-December period and a return to "typical winter conditions" with near normal temperatures and typical snowfalls returned in January and will likely continue for the remainder of the season.
La Nina's tend to bias western continental ridging and dominant Atlantic storm activity from Britain and Ireland into the Low Countries of the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and into northern France. This appears likely to cold OVERALL during February and thus as expected in my seasonal forecast published back on Oct 31, 2010, winter wouldn't be like last winter as the mid point would see a substantial mild and more seasonable pattern and the brunt and worst of our winter would occur during December. I did state that the mid and later point of winter 2010-11 should see off and on cold and like we did see this during January, we're likely to see more off-on style shots of cold and perhaps snow during February and into March. The cold, even for central and even eastern Europe is less severe than what was seen in November and December but because the typically mild, sunny south of Europe (Italy, Greece etc) don't see particularly cold weather, The cold air IS EXPECTED to reach these areas and will result in the greatest departures from normal for February with perhaps unusual snow and cold to Med coastal resorts.
A generally dull, overcast, showery and breezy day with a west, southwest flow and this ushers in mild Atlantic air. Heavier more persistent rains moved in by this afternoon and will continue tonight.