It’s that time of Autumn again, where weather enthusiasts start looking into the longer range forecasts for telleconnections, pattern changes, and the first chance of snowfall; while everyone else who dreads winter will start shopping for new coats, boots and shovels. For now, it’s snow haters rejoice: It appears there will be very little wintry weather through most, if not all, of November.
The interaction between tropical moisture — remnants of Hurricane Patricia — and a strong mid level atmospheric disturbance over the North Central US will aid in the development of steady rain on Wednesday. As forcing for precipitation increases during the morning hours, steady rains will develop from southwest to northeast throughout the area. Atmospheric moisture content will increase throughout the day, as a psuedo-warm front moves through New Jersey and New York.
Precipitable water values between 200 and 300 percent above average are a testament to the tropical moisture involved in Wednesday’s rains. During the late morning and afternoon, a low level jet stream is expected to strengthen, further aiding in the potential for heavy rains. While heavy rain isn’t expected to be constant, sporadic heavy rains could cause localized flooding, despite the moderate drought conditions in much of Northern New Jersey, New York and Connecticut.
With Autumn very obviously and officially underway (have you been outside the past few days?), the questions have begun to surface regarding the upcoming winter — and if the Autumn pattern will foreshadow it. Unfortunately, it isn’t quite as simple as “A cold October means a cold winter” or ” A warm November means a warm winter”. If that were the case, we’d have long range forecasting figured out by now, and there would be much less urgency to winter outlooks. The best we have for now are correlations, analogs, and pattern drivers. When used together, the summation of these factors provide a higher probability of success in medium to long range forecasting. But these methods are far from perfect. The evolution of these different atmospheric oscillations during the autumn season can often give us substantial clues into the ensuing winter’s dominant index modalities.