- Nov 21, 2020

NOAA WINTER OUTLOOK, WHO DIGS IT...

CHRISTMAS IS COMING

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SATURDAY'S FEATURE POST

Thursday's high in several places across Iowa reached or exceeded 70. At the time I thought to myself, you know, it could be a long time before my area sees readings as warm as that again. Thanks to the Iowa Mesonet, I was able to determine just how rare another 70 would be this year. In the Quad Cities (which hit 70 Thursday), only 5 times in149 years have 70s been recorded after today (November 20th). In December only once during the entire month has a high hit 70. If you do the math, chances are less than 1 percent we get this warm again the rest of this year.

If you are wondering about 60 degree highs, they are more attainable but even those are tough to come by after the first 5 days of December. Enough said about that.

With regards to the rest of the weekend, little has changed as models remain in good agreement with the next wave and its precipitation passing largely to the south. There will be some passing clouds but enough solar insulation to get highs into the mid 40s on average which is pretty close to normal. Any showers or drizzle should be confined to the far south Saturday night (especially near and south of HWY 34). Here's what the GFS and EURO show for total precipitation.

The EURO

The GFS

THANKSGIVING WEEK

A much stronger disturbance is slated to arrive Monday night and Tuesday and this looks to be the only trouble spot during Thanksgiving week. From all indications this should be a decent precipitation producer so it's a good thing temperatures are expected to be just warm enough for most areas to see nothing more than rain, perhaps a brief period of snow or a mix to start, mainly near and north of HWY 20. This is what models are currently depicting for accumulations. Again, I will add that this is very tentative and low confidence.

The GFS

The EURO

Here's the rainfall projections for the system which again has the potential to be a wet one. The GFS

The EURO

After the storm exists the weather looks quiet and seasonal trough the rest of Thanksgiving week (Wednesday-Sunday). Nothing to worry about but caloric intake and covid.

THE NOAA WINTER OUTLOOK

One last thing before I call it a day, the winter outlook from NOAA just came out and it looks very much like what you would expect from a moderate to strong east based La Nina winter. Cold and snowier north and mild and dry south. I have no beef with this and as you may recall a couple weeks ago I graded the winter out for overall severity at a C+ to B- (a little bit worse than average) We shall see.