More wind - little precipitation - better days ahead

This past weather system that rolled through yesterday, March 16, packed a punch in terms of crashing temperatures and high wind.  At least a little precipitation was generated. 

Here is a map showing what fell during the 3 day period of March 14-16...

In the report I sent to the subscribers to my longrange outlooks, the next period that "could" bring some precipitation is coming up next week.  It likely won't be just one system, but a series of weaker storm systems.  After that there should be a couple more opportunities going into April.   In the report I sent out to those subscribers and in subsequent reports I'll be sending, more dates of opportunity have been identified.  Please consider joining this premium service that could help you in planning of your operation in the crop and livestock world. 

Go to:  https://huttonweatherfutures.com/ to learn more about that opportunity for a premium service.

Update 02/23/23

As a reminder I will only be updating this blog site on occasion as I move forward with my consulting company, Hutton Weather Futures LLC.  I will provide more detail in outlooks emailed to subscribers and the reports will of course be much more frequent as a subscription service.  That web address is https://huttonweatherfutures.com/  

As I have mentioned in the reports I have been emailing to my customers, weather systems in this current pattern are on schedule.  The next system that I have targeted is for late this weekend.  It will likely be the first severe weather "outbreak" for the central part of the country.  Rainfall on the west end will be limited once again but may be farther west this time.

So far for February, the results from the active pattern have been nearly the same (eastern areas benefiting greatly).  Here is a map of precipitation that has fallen this month (February)....

Other systems are due periodically in March with one in particular expected around the spring equinox. 

Hopefully you will consider subscribing to my consulting update reports as I'm certain I can provide useful information (inputs) into making your crop and livestock production profitable.  

Weather Systems are on schedule?

 First - if you haven't been visiting this blog site lately, please review the one I did on January 20 (click here) to read up on how this blog will be handled going forward.  With my consulting company, Hutton Weather Futures LLC, I will provide more detail in outlooks emailed to subscribers and the reports will of course be much more frequent as a subscription service.  That web address is https://huttonweatherfutures.com/.  I will only occasionally update this blog site "swkswx.blogspot.com". 

As I have mentioned in the reports I have been emailing to my customers, weather systems in this current pattern are on schedule.  The next system that I have targeted for February 7-8 has been showing up in some of the long-range computer forecast models but with inconsistent timing and inconsistent features.  Confidence is fairly high that there will be impacts across parts of the Great Plains.  Details at this point are uncertain.

Looking at the current upper air map, any potential storm for next week is not really showing up on this map at least as of Wednesday evening (1st)....

The storm moving across northern Mexico has been weakening but still very capable of producing a widespread precipitation event from southwest Texas and eventually into the lower Mississippi Valley.  It is way too far south to impact the central plains.   The strong system across the eastern Pacific (the big red L) will be moving northeast into Canada and will only promote warming for the central plains but with no indication of any moisture.

Any potential storm next week hopefully will benefit the area that has been consistently getting missed as you can see in the precipitation maps for January (the first is the amount and 2nd is the precent of normal).

  

For January that is a hefty amount of precipitation for Nebraska and northwest Kansas!

Again, I have started the subscription service at https://huttonweatherfutures.com.  I hope you will consider subscribing and join the others receiving these frequent updates of the expected weather as we get into the growing season.

Subscription Services have begun - 2nd and 3rd storms

If you read the previous blog posting on the 27th (read it by clicking here) then you are aware that I retired from my position with the National Weather Service at the end of 2022.  I have since formed my weather consulting company - Hutton Weather Futures, LLC and will be providing a more specific form of weather outlooks that are similar to what you may have read in this blog.  It is a subscription-based opportunity for you to receive valuable insight into what can be expected weather-wise far into extended periods to help in your business needs.  Access to the data is through a weekly (or as needed in between a weekly report) that will be emailed to you.  The pricing structure is stated on my company's website, and that is:

https://huttonweatherfutures.com/

I hope you will consider the opportunity to receive these reports that will be delivered on a consistent basis (with occasional updates).  I will likely "occasionally" post here on this blog site but without as much detail as I hope to provide with the subscription-based service. 

In that previous blog posting on the 27th, I had mentioned three potential systems that could benefit much of the western high plains.  It was unclear on the track of number 2 and 3.  The first system behaved as expected with the biggest impacts being across northeast Colorado and far northwest Kansas and into Nebraska.  Amounts for much of southwest Kansas were very light in most areas, but anything helps settling the dust, I guess.

System number 2 that is expected this Friday evening and into Saturday will be rather compact, but the eventual track will benefit much of the area that was missed by system number 1.  I would not be surprised to see six-inch snow amounts at some locations across western Kansas but especially into southeast Colorado. Unfortunately, there will be a sharp gradient on the south side of the snow area and those south of the gradient will not get much, if at all.  The location of the snow shield will not be known until the event starts.  Moisture content in the snow will be on the wetter side!

System number 3 will impact the region late Sunday into Monday.  The eventual track could be making it an Oklahoma storm, but that track is highly suspect.

Again, please visit my website for details on a subscription-based service...

https://huttonweatherfutures.com/

Three storms and who will benefit - plus I'm transitioning to Hutton Weather Futures LLC

As many of you are aware, I retired from my position with the National Weather Service at the end of 2022.  However, I'm not leaving weather as a profession.  I have since formed my consulting company - Hutton Weather Futures, LLC.  I will be providing a more specific form of weather outlooks that are similar to what you may have read in this blog.  It's in the formative stages at this point but will be gaining ground quickly.  It will be a subscription based opportunity for you to receive valuable insight into what can be expected weather-wise far into extended periods to help in your business needs.  At this point, access to the data will likely be a through a weekly or sub-weekly report (or as needed in between a weekly report).  The pricing structure is still be worked on. I hope to have everything ironed out by the end of this week (20th) and details will be shared in this blog.  Stay tuned by checking back. 

In the past week I've spoken at several meetings discussing this awful weather situation that much of the high plains has been in.  The one silver lining is that there have been weather systems, but unfortunately they have not benefited much of the high plains.  Starting tonight and through middle part of next week, there will likely be 3 more opportunities.   Looking at the upper air map from this morning...

A very strong upper level storm was moving towards the Four Corners region.  It has been strong enough to dump copious amounts of snow even as far south as Flagstaff Arizona.  The issue (as is typical) will be the eventual track of the storm as it moves out into the plains.  Unfortunately for much of the high plains of Kansas down into west Texas, the system will track too far north to bring significant moisture.  Northeast Colorado, Northwest Kansas across much of Nebraska there will be a large area of heavy snow.  Across the eastern half of Kansas there will be pretty fair amount of rain and even freezing rain closer to the Nebraska/Kansas border.

A second potential storm, that as of this morning was across the Gulf of Alaska, could impact the plains.  It was set to amplify into the high plains over the coming weekend.  Initial thoughts would have it tracking a farther south so that areas that miss out tonight/Wednesday should get at least some precipitation (likely in the form of snow).  Details are not possible at this point as the system will have to undergo strengthening and amplifying before any idea will come into light.  But, fingers crossed!

A third system is simply a small disturbance aloft that was currently way out in the Pacific.  It is denoted by the red X on the top left corner of the map above.  There is some possibility that it could be a system to watch by the middle part of next week.  There is a tremendous amount of uncertainty.

Here is the early look at what could fall through next Tuesday (image from the Weather Prediction Center)

An important point though is that all three of the systems may miss much of the high plains of Kansas into the southern high plains.  As stated above, there have been systems all fall and winter but most have bypassed the hardest hit region of the drought.

Speaking of which, here is the latest drought map.

California has certainly improved in that category!  Here is a percent of normal precipitation since the beginning of January.  

Some of the snowpack stations are already above the seasonal normal and some are approaching record amounts of moisture in the snow -  already!  If only we could get just a taste of that.

So to recap...

I've started a company - Hutton Weather Futures, LLC.  Frequent (at a minimum weekly, but with updates) reports will be emailed to subscribers.  The pricing structure has not been set but hopefully I will be ready to go by the end of the week.  Details are forthcoming and will be posted in this blog.  BTW, this blog will probably continue but on an in-frequent basis with less detail.

Brief update

This will have to be very brief.  My NWS is coming to a close and I have been swamped in that preparation.

The expected cold mentioned in the previous post has come to fruition and will culminate with brutally cold and wind Thursday and into the early weekend.  Any meaningful snow will concentrate on the midwest but won't help in any drought concerns as it will be very dry.  The biggest issue will be the cold (actual temperatures and wind chill indices), as shown below.

The upper air pattern is ideal with the cold buildup across the higher latitudes of North America and is being unleashed south as the blocking high had developed across Greenland.  Here is the upper air map as of this morning...

Expected temperatures Friday morning (and keep in mind Thursday temperatures will not be much warmer and wind chill indices will be extremely cold)...

Warmer weather is expected the last few days of December.  January - I need to find some time to look it over.

BTW, here is a map of precipitation that occurred yesterday by a little weak weather system.

I'm not sure I will be able to update until after the first of the year - as a Non-National Weather Service but as a consulting Meteorologist.  Changes are coming!

The pattern may be set

In the previous post on 11/23/22 (read it by clicking here) the headline was "another swing and a miss?".  I also discussed that this year's pattern was not quite set, or so it would appear.  With the system this week (southeast of the area across mainly Oklahoma but a secondary moving well north) and the system moving by this Friday night and Saturday (again mainly southeast of the area), I believe I have a pretty good idea of the nature of the pattern.  Is it concerning that much of the high plains has been left high and dry?  Absolutely.  But with the changing of the seasons (fall into winter, winter into spring, and spring into summer), the pattern will shift around enough that it won't be totally gloom and doom.  Now to time it.

The system(s) the past 2 days brought good moisture to Oklahoma again (and into the Corn Belt).  Here is a map of that precipitation. 

During the past 2 weeks there was "some" precipitation farther into the plains, but not a lot.

The biggest weather news this next week will be a monster storm that is going to impact much of the central part of the country with a blizzard across Nebraska and the Dakotas and severe convective weather farther south and east.  There will be a big concern for a possible outbreak of tornadoes across the Mississippi Valley.  For the high plains (at least the central and southern high plains), it looks like more of the same with dry and way too much wind.  But....

In the past few meetings and presentations that I have been doing, I mentioned the second half of December could be active and very cold.  I've expected this for several weeks because of some connections to the tropics with the higher latitudes; possible blocking of the jetstream;, and a buildup of snowcover across the northern hemisphere. One thing I look at in a shorter time frame (less than 30 days) is the indices of the Arctic Oscillation and the North Atlantic Oscillation. 

It's not unusual for these indices to go strongly negative.  When the Arctic Oscillation goes strongly negative, it is often followed by a deep intrusion of Arctic air into lower latitudes.  Sometimes it's across Europe or Eurasia and sometimes into North America.  It just depends.  When the North Atlantic Oscillation goes deeply negative, there is usually blocking of the jetstream across the Atlantic and into Greenland.  When this happens weather systems tend to slow down and move more meridional. But, when both the AO and NAO go negative, there is quite often a major intrusion of Arctic air into North America, including the U.S..  That is one clue that December is about to get frigid.  Then top it off with the snow that has built up across the northern hemisphere...

BTW, that area of snow cover across the northern hemisphere had been above record levels and still is above the 56 year mean.  Interesting. 

With all this going on and with the pattern that is setting up, the jet stream flow is going to become (or has become) very energetic and volatile.   After this major storm moves by early next week, the remainder of December will, on average, be colder than normal with periodic episodes of snow (including snowfall for the high plains).  The way I see it, many locations across the central and northern U.S., will have a white Christmas or at least the odds favor such.

As far as precipitation, here is what the Weather Prediction Center is expecting through the end of next week.

That is definately a concerning image for the central and southern high plains, especially knowing that there is going to be more wind.  The periodic snow I'm expecting towards the end of the month will help a little.  I would expect those opportunities to repeat a couple of times going into spring.  

My gut feeling going farther into 2023?  It will be a “normal” winter, active spring and probably a dry and hot summer – all subject to updates as the pattern becomes evident.  

With me wrapping up my career in Meteorology with the NWS, I'm not having much time to update this blog but I will attempt to do so again next week.  As mentioned, a month ago or so, changes will be coming to this blog.  More later.