Weather It Is (Winter's Break)

Good Morning:

What a difference a week makes.  We were moving along day to day without any rain or any particularly cold weather, and this seemed to change in an instance.

Actually, we saw signs of the change about a week or so prior, and the high clouds of early last week were the harbinger of the change that would occur by mid-week.

In one sense, there is a lot certainty.  It is going to get colder, and today's rain will be replaced my mid-week by an even heavier rain and even colder temperatures. We're certain about the cold, but we can't be certain yet about how much snow will fall and stick (as if we are ever certain about the "stick" part in the Jerusalem area and higher mountains of the Galilee).  Yet, it does appear that temperatures should be cold enough for wet snow sometime on Thursday, and that the greatest likelihood for a drier and accumulating snow if for the afternoon (and especially at night).

We'll have to wait until the day before to really see these details more clearly.

How is this unusually cold air consistent with the "global warming?"  Think of the onset of winter as a battle between the winds of summer/fall and the unsettled (and wavy) pattern of winter. The warmer the temperatures in the lower latitudes the stronger the blocking patter for the onset of winter.  However, once the winter breaks, it breaks more deeply like water flowing through a broken dam (the wave pattern of the trough is deeper).  The amount of cold also depends on just how the winter pattern enters our area.  Right now, it is suppose to enter from the north, which reduces the sea's influence on warming of the lower atmosphere. At the same time, as the system retrogrades over the sea, the sea is still quite warm, so moisture will flow into the system, spinning up an unusually potent storm.

Barry Lynn