Brief update - 01/06/17

In the previous post I did on the 2nd (read it by clicking here), I showed an upper level storm near Washington and Oregon that was going to get cut off from the flow (moving west or southwest) but then would eventually move out into the central U.S..  That particular system was moving by today (Friday) after bringing snow to the high plains (and adjacent areas) yesterday and early this morning.  In Kansas amounts varied quite a bit but in general 2 to 5 inches fell.  Similar or slightly less fell in parts of the Texas Panhandle and across Oklahoma.  Unfortunately there was not a lot of moisture in the snow, but any helps. You can see the position of this system (the red X on the right hand side of the image) on this mornings satellite image (western view)...

click for a large view























Looking at the same satellite image, there was an impressive amount of upper flow across the central and eastern Pacific.  An upper low was over the Gulf of Alaska, but more importantly was the very moist flow meandering across the Pacific Ocean.  The first batch associated with an upper storm was about to slam into California and a second was northwest of Hawaii and will slam into the west late in the weekend or first of next week.  All told there will be feet of rain across much of California and tens of feet of snow in the higher elevation.  It will be highly publicized by our glorious national media (will probably blame it on global warming or climate change).  Good news for that drought stricken state!

Unfortunately for the plains, very little moisture (actually probably zero) will occur as the storms weaken moving into the Rockies.  The reason for the weakening will be the "background" ridge that I've discussed previously in this blog.  This ridge will also help to warm things up dramatically next week.  I'm fairly certain that there will be 60s and perhaps 70s across some areas of the high plains.

But, that warmup will be relatively brief (3 to 5 days) as another surge of Arctic air may ooze into the high plains.  I'm not sold on that just yet but the probability is increasing.

Here is the forecast for precipitation from the Weather Prediction Center for the next 7 days.


I'm going to be strapped for time during this next week.  I'll try and get something put together next Thursday and will discuss the last half of January (which may have an opportunity for another storm and more cold) and into February (that is starting to look pretty wintry).  More on that later.