Looking Ahead To The Long Range

Hello everyone and good Sunday evening to you. We're fresh off the best snow (so far) of the winter season and we managed to follow that up with high temperatures in the upper 40's and a few low 50's out there. I guess you can certainly call this a wild weekend. Tonight we'll see another artic front moving in with a band of light snow behind it. This could bring up to an inch of snow. The best chacnes for accumulation looks to be south of I-64 and along and east of I-75. Timing of the front and snow looks to occur early Monday morning.

What does it look like further down the road? I recently had the chance to check seasonal models earlier today and saw some interesting stuff. First off, the month of February looks cold and snowy from the last check of the CFS models. March is throwing some mixed signals but at the same time, it trends a warm up. I think March is when this brutal winter pattern finally breaks. I also think it becomes the start of what may be a active severe weather season in the midwest states.

Let's go back to the topic of an active February. Here's a bit of evidence for an active month:

This is the Analog from the GFS. See the big mass of red just off the coast of Alaska? That's a blocking high pressure, that will continue to creating ridging in the west (keeping California dry and in a serious drought) and it will also allow the trough to continue to camp in the middle and eastern half of the country delivering storm after storm and plenty more shots of artic air to the area. Although there isn't much of a high pressure blocking presence near Greenland to force artic air southward, the shear strength and clockwise flow of the high pressure near Alaska is enough to rush artic air into the country.

As far as I can tell, we may be dealing with a few more nice snows this winter. Models sure do point at it. If you recall, about a month ago I did say I think the deepest snow of the season will happen in Jan-Feb. Oh and another thing, if you read my winter weather forecast you would know my bold prediction was at least the threat for one snow of 6" or more. keep that in mind as we head into February ;)

Any questions or concerns feel free to message me on my new page Clayton Banks SEKYWeather. I will get back to you as soon as I can. Have a great night everyone and take care!

Early Fears About The Spring Severe Season

Hello everyone and welcome back to the blog! I know this is my first post in literally forever but hey what can I say? I'm one busy weather dude. ;) In all seriousness I do need to get back into the swing of producing more blog posts for sure. Anyways, let's get to it shall we?

The title of the post says it all, I have fears early on about the spring severe weather season. It was in the midst of the Polar Vortex outbreak that I realized the extent that this extremely cold winter season can have on the spring severe season. We all know that this winter has been pretty cold, no doubt but it does have a GREAT deal of an affect on the upcoming severe weather season. It happens like this every year. We all also know that thunderstorms happen in warmer weather but what most of you don't know is that you also need sufficent amounts of cold air too.

Long story short, what happens for thunderstorms to form is you need warm moist air from the Gulf of Mexico to rise north and collide/clash with a cool dry Canadian airmass and this colliding is what forms Severe thunderstorms. Also keep in mind that just because the season says "spring" doesn't mean we won't see some cold days either. Shots of cold air shoot south into the U.S. during the severe season and clash with warm moist air from the Gulf as stated above producing severe thunderstorm outbreaks.

We have had plenty of extremely cold air this winter season. So you ask, what are my fears exactly? My fears is that this cold air (in which Analog and seasonal models now suggest lasts through February and into March) will cause an increased risk for severe weather into the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys this spring season. Why aren't you worried about the warm gulf of Mexico air? That's simple, it will be the spring season. The Warm air from the Gulf will win the battle and it will ALWAYS show up right on cue. For those of you reading that need hard evidence of this before you will believe it I have some for you. If you remember, the 2011/2012 winter season was a colder than average and snowier than average season for us, now look ahead to what happened early in spring. One of the deadliest/worst tornado outbreaks to hit the state of Kentucky happened. No I'm not saying that will happen again this year but I am saying I expect nothing short of an very active severe weather season for the spring ahead. We'll have plenty of warm air and cold air clashing available. Keep an eye out for further updates as in the coming months I will have a Spring Forecast out.

Thank you all for reading, if you have any questions feel free to ask on my new Facebook Page at Clayton Banks SEKYWeather. Have a great night everyone and take care!