Update - 02/16/16 - Record warmth?

In past posts (since the fall) I've harped and complained and stressed that this "Super El Nino" was NOT going to behave like an El Nino!  "Experts", non-weather people, and the media could only tell everyone that this was going to be the Godzilla of all El Ninos and that the there was going to be so much devastation this winter.  Go back and read my posts, I pointed out two wild card possibilities that would thwart California from receiving drought ending rains.  Even today, look at the satellite image!


 The jet stream is ONCE AGAIN slamming the Pacific Northwest and southwest Canada!  What about southern California?  Missed again!

In the post I did on the 11th (and a couple before that), I discussed several possibilities of a storm around the 16th, give or take a couple of days.  That storm?  The two red X's on the satellite image are what could have been the storm. Both are fairly strong, but gave absolutely nothing to the high plains.  I consider this a busted and terrible outlook on my part.  There are several reasons why these two systems did not produce for the plains and the biggest reasons might be the phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation and the angular momentum across the Pacific temporarily shifting the upper level ridge too far east.  On the satellite image, the ridge is denoted by the big blue dotted line.  The phase of the NAO follows:



So this now has crushed my confidence in the outlook for the last days of February and first week or two of March.  Originally I was expecting an active period developing.  But now, I'm not so sure.  I've got to take a little time and reanalyze the pattern.

In the mean time, the huge upper level ridge and westerly momentum will result in near or record warmth across the plains (and adjacent eastern plains).   There is a strong possibility that many locations will NOT fall below freezing at night for 5 to 7 days (at least) and day time readings are expected to climb well above climatological normal temperatures.  At Dodge City, a stretch of 7 days of above 32 during February has happened only three times in recorded observations.  The last time was in 1981.

For crop guys and gals....will this be enough to break the wheat out of dormancy?  This type of warmth for mid-February is pretty unusual. 

More typical winter conditions will return and March could end up a little on the cool side compared to climatology.