Update - November 4, 2014

I've been a professional Meteorologist since 1983.  The first six years were in the private sector where I was manager of forecasting operations and the remainder working for the National Weather Service (in Des Moines, IA and in Dodge City) where I've been both a Lead Forecaster and a Warning Coordination Meteorologist.  In those years I've gained a lot of experience.  One of my life's experiences is that once I make a forecast and it's my gut feeling, I stick with it!  Don't change that initial forecast!   Well, I'm breaking that wisdom.  If you go to the outlook that I issued on October 23 (click here for that discussion), you can see my outlook at the bottom of that post.  I've already made a tweak to the temperature forecast for the winter months of December, January, and February.  I'm already seeing some signs that the cold may dominate early on (not sure about late winter yet) so the average for the 3 months may be colder than originally thought.

 

Updated forecast made on November 4, 2014

The initial temperature outlook can be viewed by clicking here.

I've left the precipitation forecast as is.   BTW, at our office we have a "guess how much snow will fall" and I guessed 29.8" of snow at the Dodge City airport from November through May.   Totals will be highly variable across the plains though.

One of the reasons I'm leaning more towards the cold side is that vast amount of snow cover that is already across Eurasia and Siberia.  It is reportedly the most seen since the mid 1970s!  Usually this does not bode for a mild/warm winter across the U.S., and since I was already expecting  a pattern conducive to cold, I just had to make the adjustment.  The following map shows the snow and ice cover across the northern hemisphere as of November 3...

You might notice the lack of snow cover across North America.  Despite the record setting snows across the eastern part of the country late this past weekend, the overall snow cover across the U.S. is actually a little less than normal.  Also, there really hasn't been extremely cold weather yet (except for the far east and southeast part of the U.S.) and in fact much of the western half of Kansas has not had a "killing" freeze!  But, that is about to change and change big!

If you follow the weather at all you may have heard about the super typhoon across the western Pacific south of Japan.  Nuri is it's name and it is quite powerful for so late in the season.  As Nuri heads north it will interact with a anonymously strong jet stream and will become an extremely deep and strong ex-tropical cyclone as it heads towards the Bering Sea.  In fact there are predictions of wave heights of 50 feet possible in the Bering Sea.  WOW!  This powerful storm and the track will help force a shot of very cold air to head south into the U.S. in 7 to 10 days (probably closer to 7).  This cold air will likely spread  deep into the plains and midwest.  By the middle part of next week high temperatures may be in the 20s/30s and lows in the single digits to teens, at least that seems a distinct possibility.   The way the NWS operates this may not show up in the forecast until a few days out - it will likely just be a gradual trend towards colder.   There does not appear to be much chance in the way of precipitation though.

The following satellite image shows the feature I'm talking about...

A look at recent precipitation and the drought

Late Sunday night and early Monday there was a bit of precipitation that moved out of Colorado and New Mexico and into Kansas.  The amounts were generally very light except down in New Mexico.

For October the rains were a little more generous for many folks, but lacked significantly for others.  By far the greatest amounts were across eastern Kansas, Oklahoma and into the Mississippi valley.  Click for a larger version.

At Dodge City the total was above average.  The following map for October precipitation has a different color curve than the one above but it shows the high plains a little closer.  Click for a larger version.

The drought continues across much of the western part of the country and also across parts of the plains.  The winter months are not a good time to improve on the drought since it's the driest part of the year, historically.

One final thought....Thanksgiving.  I've got little hunch that there will be a very high impact weather event around that time, somewhere across the central plains into the midwest.  Obviously this is quite a ways out but it is something I will be watching carefully.  Historically the highest threat for a blizzard across western Kansas is during three periods:  1) November 20-30, 2) January 1-5, 3) March 18-22.  This is only based on climatology.

I'll try for another update next Wednesday.