Major Storm System from Coast to Coast this Week

Winter getting a jump start

Des Moines received its earliest 1 inch snowfall on record yesterday when 1.1 inches feel and two inches of snow in Denver forced the cancellation of the Rockies-Phillies NLDS playoff game last night. A major snowstorm blasted Nebraska Friday night into Saturday as nearly 14 inches fell at North Platte with over 17 inches in some isolated areas. Wind chills dropped to 11 degrees in Rapid City, South Dakota. More snow is expected into Monday with winter storms watches now posted from Montana to Minnesota. This will be the weaker of two storms this upcoming week.

Models are coming together in agreement of how the storm system talked about in the previous post will come into the U.S. Still plenty of details let to iron out on how it will tranverse the Plains and into the East. However all signs are pointing to a major storm system with plenty of snow for October north of the track.

The teleconnection that I talked about in the previous post with typhoon recurving is setting up near perfectly. Normally, the typhoon recurving simply outlines the ridges and how it pumps the ride west of the date line. This then continues to the east and pumps a deep trough in the Gulf of Alaska, which pumps the western Ridge. So if you have a strong ridge in the west this forces a trough to dig into the East. So it's not the typhoon, but what it means is the useful tool. However in this situation the actual tropical energy aka moisture could actually get involved. As typhoon Melor was absorbed into a extra tropical low and is still very well intact as it crosses the Pacific.

I believe this will first hit the Pacific Northwest with lots of wind, rain and heavy mountain snow early this week. Then as the energy crosses the Rockies the low energy transfers to a baroclinic zone. That is put down from a weaker low that will cause heavy rains in the Southern Plains into the Mississippi Valley early Monday and Tuesday. The front will then become stationary and wait for the main energy that will help develop a strong low pressure by late week. This low pressure will likely form in Oklahoma on Wednesday then quickly move east across the middle Mississppi Valley by Thursday and Friday. Then as the northern Jet and southern jet fully phase the trough will become negatively tilted. Helping the low pressure to turn northward and deepen as it heads into the Northeast.
















This will likely cause some more flooding rains in the south and also the possibility of severe weather. The flip side of the front will be producing cold rains changing over to snow. As a swath of accumulating snow will streak east out of Nebraska into Iowa, Wisconsin and even Northern Illinois. Chicago looks right on the border line as it looks now. Still really early to start pinpointing amounts or the actual snow/rain line. This snow will likely continue into Michigan and really start to become heavy from Pennslyvania into the interior Northeast. This will likely be a tree striper as lots of leaves still remain on the trees. As the snow will likely be very wet and cling to everything with a strong north wind as the storm winds down. Beyond this storm very cold air for this time of the year will surge south. As rain changes to flurries possibly as far south as parts of Tennessee with frost and freeze possible down to Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia By the weekend.

This is my latest forecast as in what I see happening this week.

Stay tuned as this storm starts to develop and I will no doubt have to adjust my forecast. -Justin-