Wednesday Evening Rambles…
A rainy and (at times) stormy night is ahead for central Indiana as a cold front approaches.
While scattered thunderstorms are impacting portions of central IN as we type this (6p and looking at you Whitestown), more widespread showers and embedded thunderstorms will blow into town late tonight. Here’s an idea of what the radar may look like around 10p.
For most neighborhoods, expect 0.25″-0.50″ of needed rain tonight into the wee morning hours Thursday. There will be localized heavier totals through central Indiana.
Temperatures will be cooler Thursday, but will remain above normal- generally topping out in the middle and upper 60s in the afternoon before falling Thursday evening. Cooler air will be with us to close the work week (upper 50s to around 60° for most for highs Friday).
Our next storm system has it’s eyes on the area Tuesday evening into Wednesday, but looks less significant when compared to 24-48 hours ago. We’ll continue to keep an eye on things.
GFS ensemble members aren’t terribly “excited” about our next storm potential next week.
There continues to be a great deal of interest around colder times and a pattern change around mid-month. We want to reiterate a couple things:
1.) Wholesale significant pattern changes can (and normally do) wreck havoc on medium and long range data. To our fellow weather friends out there who love to look at run-to-run operational data, expect wild swings as the pattern transition gets underway mid month.
2.) While we’re fully in the camp of a major reversal to cold, we caution the initial pattern transition will likely feature a “step-down” process before shifting to more of a true winter-like pattern (likely complete with plenty of storminess; hello snow lovers) from the Thanksgiving to Christmas period.
Finally, our complete 2016-2017 IndyWx.com Winter Outlook can be found here.
In addition to the central PAC anomalies, we also are keying in on some other items of interest in the overall SST configuration:
The SST CA model is quickly becoming one of our more trusted seasonal forecast models. We note how it becomes increasingly bullish on a central and eastern trough as winter wears on (by the way, this is likely to go deep into spring this year, too).
Cold overwhelms the pattern and when you combine it with the active storm track (noted by the green hues, suggesting above normal precipitation through our neck of the woods), confidence is continuing to grow for an above normal snow season.
The SST configuration on the JAMSTEC would suggest a cold, stormy set-up, locally. That said, while it sees the above average precipitation, it’s awfully warm at the surface.
The NMME (to no surprise…) would suggest a very warm, wet winter.
As a reminder, our complete and final annual winter outlook will be posted here during the second half of October. That will include additional model data, along with several other points behind our reasoning for our winter forecast. As we always do, we’ll put “pen to paper” when it comes to our winter forecast, including our expected temperature and snowfall anomalies. Given the data above, including the warm JAMSTEC and NMME, it’s going to be very, very hard to see a warm winter here. In fact, our idea is for the exact opposite, given the SST configuration, and lines up more closely with the SST CA idea at this point. We’re also in the camp of a very, very active storm track through the Ohio Valley. “Big-hitter” potential is present from a winter storm perspective, especially given that we are likely to see resistance from the SE ridge.
