Update - November 22, 2017

Since the last posting on the 3rd of November (read it by clicking here) the weather across the high plains has seen quite a few frontal passages with occasional colder weather (most notable during the overnight) but very little to no precipitation.  At Dodge City (airport) there has only been 0.01" of moisture since October 6th.  Some locations there hasn't been any at all!  Obviously it's getting really dry, especially in the top several inches of the soil.    Unfortunately, the outlook through the rest of November is not good as far as moisture.

In the previous post my early outlook for the high plains was for the following:

For the high plains....
Early fall - drier than normal for an average.  Temperatures near to above on average (but with some brief cold).
Late fall - near normal precipitation on average.  Temperatures near to below on average.
Winter (Dec-Feb) - near to above normal precipitation on average.  Temperatures near average but with a couple of bitter periods (short lived).
Spring - I have no clue - ok, I'll guess normal precip and temperatures
Summer - drier and hotter than normal.


I'm not changing my mind at this point.  At the present time, there continues to be conflicting signals!  First the Arctic Oscillation has dove deep into the negative category!


The North Atlantic Oscillation has also gone negative.


These two indices should be very favorable for a massive invasion of Arctic cold into the states, including Kansas.  As of this Wednesday morning, that cold air was in place to the north.

But there is something else going on and I'm not quite sure what is driving this current weather pattern!  I believe though that the pattern is still setting up and perhaps it will be influenced with a greater contribution from the tropical Pacific.  I'm not sold on that yet, but it's a possibility.  With that being said, looking at the equatorial Pacific, the ENSO has moved more towards a La Nina (at least some of the indices point in that direction).  IF, and that's a BIG if, the equatorial forcing in the Nino 3,4 dominates this winter, the outcome for the plains could go in the direction that we've already seen this fall.   That would be frequent cold frontal passages, which would mitigate precipitation chances, but with wild swings in temperatures.  The Madden Julian Oscillation (MJO) should still be a contributor on occasion so that leaves the door open for a 2 or 3 "wetter" periods or at least opportunities for wet storms out of the southern Rockies as we go into late winter.  We better hope so or it's going to be an ugly, dry and dusty spring!

So, for now, I'll keep with my early outlook.   Perhaps the first good opportunity for a decent storm will be between December 3-10 with brutal cold following for a few days.  Don't count on it yet as there are absolutely no indications - it's just kind of a gut feeling (and that is before it's stuffed with turkey).

 I'll try and update again around the first of December.