We’ll save our short-term discussions for the severe and high-impact arctic outbreak on deck and focus our attention in this post to the upcoming several weeks. In short, we don’t expect the cold pattern to break anytime soon. Could there be a day or two of “relaxation?” Yes, but from an overall perspective, confidence is higher than normal on the colder than average pattern continuing through the month of February.
Let’s dig in to the teleconnections:
EPO
AO
NAO
PNA
Given the teleconnections in agreement pointing towards a cold pattern, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the majority of data is also on the cold train as we flip the page into February:
CFSv2 Weeklies
Weeks 1 & 2
Weeks 3 & 4
JMA Weekly
GEFS
While we aren’t licensed to show the European Weeklies, the new update runs with a cold pattern into early March. This falls in line with the overall consensus of longer range data, backed up by teleconnections.
Though not nearly at the amplitude of a few weeks ago, the MJO (Madden-Julian Oscillation) is forecast to move through Phases 5 and 6 in the coming weeks before going back into the “null” phase.
Phases 5 and 6 this time of year would suggest colder anomalies are more likely around our neck of the woods:
Given the above, we continue to think a colder than average “2nd half” of winter looms for the region. We lean heavily on the NAO, EPO, and AO state(s) this time of year and all would point towards a cold time of things moving forward, overall. The latest European Weeklies are interesting from a couple of fronts- initially very cold and then progressively stormy. The idea here is that we remain quite wintry through February and into early March before this pattern breaks. While we may not see a “repeat” visit of the Vortex, it wouldn’t surprise us to see another major arctic outbreak again this winter (after next week), but that likely comes later, and towards the end of the game before we snap into spring.
Buckle up; we think we have a long way to go this winter…