We've seen this large scale pattern evolution before. I just don't like publicly talking about such large scale analogs, because the public hears that and incorrectly instantly assumes I'm calling for the repeat of a specific day from that pattern. But you can read between the lines and get my message out of that, I know... The CFS maps above are a carbon copy of the pattern from the same month in that particular year.
Yep, that's what I was talking about.
that SE ridge may help set the stage, it is persistent for a good week and will help prime the area, especially for the next system on the following Monday.
It's weird. For instance, the analog I've talked about with you in private, in particular... there was a good bit more snowpack through the Midwest by now that year (but I think that's about to start playing catch up) and other differences that agree with your point... but down here, it's played out so similarly in such detail that we're talking about specific weather systems on specific calendar days... a light snow threat on Christmas Eve night, a severe weather system on New Year's Eve, and a heavy wet accumulating Gulf low snow system around the 9th-11th of January. All that in a general pattern that has roughly behaved similarly overall since December. It's weird how it can be so similar here and so different elsewhere, when the overall large-scale upper-level pattern over the whole CONUS if not North America overall has matched pretty well to that analog so far.
cough april 74, april 2011?
I will just say that all of those highlighted analogs above should show that the general large scale pattern is there for a potentially active severe weather season ahead, and not just in numbers but in the potential for a large scale intense event or two. All four of the years highlighted in the analog chart had high-end days. When you use certain "celebrity" analogs, people instantly blank out and think you're automatically calling for a repeat of the "celebrity" event itself, and I'm not, and we're not going there. Even if you have the exact same setup on the hemispheric or global level, it is up to individual synoptic systems to take full advantage of the background state, and then it is up to the mesoscale of one of those to take full advantage of its synoptic setup. And that is something we just can't know until we are running up on an individual system. But with everything in place, I just can't see how we can avoid an active stretch in a few months from now, with a higher-than-usual chance of a headliner type day or two.
think i may know the answer cheese. but im afraid to speculate because im not a expert here and still learning.
Might be the signs of the Nina reaching its peak (actually it probably already has done so in the eastern regions), although Nino 4 should remain cool for awhile. Fred's been discussing it at length above in the thread what it might mean for severe potential.
The various branches of the jet stream are what drive all weather patterns, every day of the year. Not just severe weather, not just winter weather, etc.