THE WARMTH IS ON... FOR NOW

The mild weather continued through the weekend and the warm air is here to stay for several more days. Temperatures are expected to be above normal for 2/3rds of the country through the first week of December:

The warmest day of this week will be Monday and may threaten records once again. Here are the projected highs on the GFS:

And here's a look at the projected highs from the National Weather Service. The circles indicate temperatures within a degree of the record:

Temperatures are going to remain above normal (not at record levels) through the rest of the week with an upper level ridge largely dominating the pattern.

A change will come eventually... likely in the 7-10 day time frame. Terry has been talking about this for a while and the cold will come! Here's the GFS on December 5th:

Keep in mind the timing may change by a few days, but there are lot of signs hinting to a colder pattern. One of those signs is the AO (Arctic Oscillation) going negative -

Around the 4-6th of December the AO starts to really tank. The EPO also goes down:

The drop comes a little bit later but both of these teleconnections together are a good signal for some cold air. Last, but not least, the MJO is trending toward some colder phases:

We'll be going through phase 4, 5, and 6 which are all (you guessed it) warm phases. Phase 7 is cold for December and yet another sign of colder times to come. It's a little too soon for specifics, but the warm stretch will come to an end. We still have several more days, so enjoy!

RK