Mild Thanksgiving

 In my last post on Sunday, I talked about a potential pattern change in the weather, with colder and snowier weather possible for Thanksgiving week.  Since that time, the computer models have consistently started to steer away from that idea.  Instead, next week looks like "more of the same" compared to this week: mild and occasionally wet.

If you read my previous post, you might remember this graphic that was created from the computer forecasts on Sunday.  It showed that 2/3rds of the 100 computer forecasts favored a cold and snowy pattern (clusters 1 and 2), while only 12% favored a ridge of high pressure (cluster 4 in the lower left).


Three days later, here's the Wednesday computer forecasts for that same period as the graphic above.  What a difference!  Notice how all of the clusters look a lot like that 12% odds forecast above, and none of them look like cluster 1 & 2 above.  


This is not unheard of.  Meteorologists use statistics a lot.  And while we typically will go with the forecast that has the best odds, we are also aware that there are other possibilities that may win out.  And this was a great example of it.  The 12% scenario was right and the 67% scenario wasn't.

So for the next 10 days, after our rainy Wednesday, we're still looking at dry weather Thursday through Saturday followed by a wet Saturday night and Sunday morning and breezy Sunday afternoon.  Next week looks dry for Monday and Tuesday.  A Pacific system will bring some valley rain and mountain snow to the area on Wednesday, which could impact Thanksgiving travel.  But at this point it does not look like a strong weather system. 





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