Five things to expect during the upcoming winter
Just about a month ago, we released our 2015-2016 Winter Forecast to the public. The forecast featured a tremendous amount of information, research, and data, most of it very technical in nature. With winter only a few weeks away, there is no better time than now for us to lay out the ideas we gathered in a more simplistic form. After all of our work to compile the forecast, there are five general things you should expect during this upcoming winter season.
1) The Winter of 2015-2016 will start off warm
Over the past few weeks, much has been made in regards to the warm pattern setting up for the month of December. Truth be told, confidence has never been higher that December will be a warmer than normal month with less snow than normal as well. Much of this can be attributed to the development and effects of a strong El Nino in the Equatorial Pacific. But some, also, has to do with the surrounding global circulations.
This month, the stratospheric polar vortex (way up there) tightened and strengthened over the North Pole. While this doesn’t totally eliminate any chance for our area to experience cold air, it does make it more difficult. A tighter and more consolidated stratospheric polar vortex means less atmospheric disruption in that region; i.e: Less high latitude blocking, or ridges, to displace the cold air farther south. This vortex is expected to weaken over the next 30 to 50 days, eventually moving and/or splitting and promoting high latitude blocking during the second half of the winter.