Yes, but not for several days. The pattern across much of the Northern Hemisphere is one that is very unusual as a large pocket of cold air has developed across central Asia and this has changed the pattern across much of the Northern Hemisphere. How so? Well the blocking over the pole has extended southwest into Scandinavia. This system has effectively broken the strangle hold of cold across much of Europe and North America and centered it across Asia.
However, the signals that are being given now for the next few weeks are such that favor a return to where we were before. The appearance of the vortex and the cold it has put into the part of Asia is about to be released and so the large scale signalling will take over again and allow the pattern to go back to where it came. Modeling is already starting to show this.
A relatively innocent looking feature over North America now will come out over the Atlantic the next few days and intensify. This will develop a fierce storm over the North Atlantic which will be near Iceland, Thursday night and Friday.
The pattern now is going back to one of short wavelengths and amplification and this will start the overall change back to where we were. The storm will reach the European Coast next weekend with heavy rains and a large part of its energy diving southeastward into Spain. This should undercut the ridge over Scandinavia forcing a piece back northwest toward the pole and the other east in a progressive fashion as the pattern over central Asia changes.
The pattern is expected to turn cold for the end of the month across much of Europe, with the threat of the coldest weather of the winter so far in February. This is based on the idea that the changes that will start to take place will develop the negative NAO. In addition, the analogs of major hurricane seasons continue to play out. We find for instance a pattern over North America now very similar to 1933, but the water profile in the Northern Hemisphere is much like 1996. Both featured very cold air masses in the mid and late winter and late spring in much of North America and Europe.
In any case, the mid-winter period this week looks relatively tranquil, but the coming pattern shift means plenty of wet weather reaches the western part of Europe by the weekend.
Joe Bastardi
Ut Wordt Nix
