I just wanted to put out there that I think beyond this storm being a season changer, its indicitave of the winter to come. I've followed you for a while and such a storm so early in the season would seem to be a good set up for a cold and wet winter. But you're the meteorologist so I'll let you have the last word on that 😉
I notice in the winter when pressure goes up and temperature plunges, and vice versa. Why is that?
Oh Heather if we only knew for sure! I do agree the signs are there for a good old fashioned winter. The key thing is where the mean storm track eventually sets up for the heart of winter. We do need to get the trough that's brought early snow to the Rockies and now the northern Plains to move southeast for us to get in the game. Based on sea surface temperatures and analogs of similar years the winters of 2013-14 and 2014-15 are similar. 2013-14 was the worse of the two by far. The difference was the mean trough was a little further west. That established the storm track and axis of cold air further west. It brought us a very cold winter with few thaws and above normal snowfall. Until we know where that mean trough ends up we won't know what we end up with here. In a broad brush sense I do expect a colder than average winter with at least normal snowfall. Still some issues I'm working on. Thanks for chiming in! TS