1/19/26 Edit: Go to the last page for discussion of the potential 1/25 snowstorm
Well, I've certainly been less interested in RU sports this year, so my posting here is way down. Not even sure how interested I am in doing weather threads if my sports interest is down, but let's see how this one goes. Anyway, most of the global models are showing shots of Canadian warming over the next 2 weeks "stretching" the Polar Vortex, which typically circulates tightly from west to east above 60N latitude near the North Pole and these stretching events can lead a sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) event for the stratospheric (above about 50,000 feet) portion of this polar vortex, leading to an actual reversal of the wind from westerly to easterly at 60N and 10 hPa (about 150,000 feet up).
SSW's occur every few years, but there has never been one in November during the satellite era. SSW's often lead to displacements in the tropospheric part (from 50,000 feet down to the surface) of the polar vortex (TPV), causing cold polar air to spill down fairly far south into parts of Eurasia and North America, often including the eastern US, potentially creating wintry conditions if the cold air intrusion of the polar vortex trough lines up well with the jet stream around the periphery of that trough, allowing it to drive storm systems into the eastern US, sometimes including wintry nor'easters. The first graphic shows the "normal" stratospheric polar vortex and tropospheric polar vortex, while the 2nd graphic shows what can happen when an SSW occurs and lobes of the TPV rotate down into more temperate latitudes like ours.
So what does this mean for us? Well, the models are showing our area being warmer than normal through about Thanksgiving, but then turning colder than normal (and possibly much colder than normal at times) for at least the subsequent 2-3 weeks into mid-December, likely due to the SSW event, as per the 3rd graphic below. It's still not a given that the SSW materializes and leads to polar vortex cold air intrusions into our area - and even if those two things do occur, if the storm tracks don't align well with when we have cold air in place, we might not see appreciable snow - but probabilistically, setups like these are more likely to have above normal snowfall for that period than not. Regardless, it should be an interesting time to track the weather.
The first link, below, is to Judah Cohen's blog on the polar vortex - he's one of the foremost experts on the polar vortex and SSW's and I'd call him skeptical, but quietly excited for the prospects of a SSW and possible wintry weather. The 2nd link is to a simple FB search on SSW's, which has a host of interesting posts from the past day or two by a number of meteorologists on all of this (a few are clickbait - rule of thumb is to ignore the posts by non-mets).
https://published.aer.com/aoblog/aoblog.html
https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=stratospheric%20warming
Well, I've certainly been less interested in RU sports this year, so my posting here is way down. Not even sure how interested I am in doing weather threads if my sports interest is down, but let's see how this one goes. Anyway, most of the global models are showing shots of Canadian warming over the next 2 weeks "stretching" the Polar Vortex, which typically circulates tightly from west to east above 60N latitude near the North Pole and these stretching events can lead a sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) event for the stratospheric (above about 50,000 feet) portion of this polar vortex, leading to an actual reversal of the wind from westerly to easterly at 60N and 10 hPa (about 150,000 feet up).
SSW's occur every few years, but there has never been one in November during the satellite era. SSW's often lead to displacements in the tropospheric part (from 50,000 feet down to the surface) of the polar vortex (TPV), causing cold polar air to spill down fairly far south into parts of Eurasia and North America, often including the eastern US, potentially creating wintry conditions if the cold air intrusion of the polar vortex trough lines up well with the jet stream around the periphery of that trough, allowing it to drive storm systems into the eastern US, sometimes including wintry nor'easters. The first graphic shows the "normal" stratospheric polar vortex and tropospheric polar vortex, while the 2nd graphic shows what can happen when an SSW occurs and lobes of the TPV rotate down into more temperate latitudes like ours.
So what does this mean for us? Well, the models are showing our area being warmer than normal through about Thanksgiving, but then turning colder than normal (and possibly much colder than normal at times) for at least the subsequent 2-3 weeks into mid-December, likely due to the SSW event, as per the 3rd graphic below. It's still not a given that the SSW materializes and leads to polar vortex cold air intrusions into our area - and even if those two things do occur, if the storm tracks don't align well with when we have cold air in place, we might not see appreciable snow - but probabilistically, setups like these are more likely to have above normal snowfall for that period than not. Regardless, it should be an interesting time to track the weather.
The first link, below, is to Judah Cohen's blog on the polar vortex - he's one of the foremost experts on the polar vortex and SSW's and I'd call him skeptical, but quietly excited for the prospects of a SSW and possible wintry weather. The 2nd link is to a simple FB search on SSW's, which has a host of interesting posts from the past day or two by a number of meteorologists on all of this (a few are clickbait - rule of thumb is to ignore the posts by non-mets).
https://published.aer.com/aoblog/aoblog.html
https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=stratospheric%20warming
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For those of you who like snow (puzzling to me) how you get a foot! Frankly I hope Army Navy is a whiteout!
