Dust, Wind, Rain, But No Snow

We continue our relatively quiet march through winter, but not without a little excitement along the way. Sunday brought us extreme winds and a minor dust storm along with near-record warmth. Tuesday night into Wednesday, portions of Oklahoma received a deluge of rain. As much as 4 to 5" of rain fell in few locations in southeastern Oklahoma. If that moisture was in fact all snow, some places would have received nearly 40 inches of powder! However, despite some active weather, we are lacking the cold air for any significant wintry weather.

There are several factors that are keeping us mild. La Niña plays a role in keeping an active, more unified polar jet stream to our north. An El Niño pattern would often split the jet stream into a polar jet and southern subtropical jet stream, which would be more likely to bring us active weather. Along with La Niña, another large-scale factor we look at is the Arctic Oscillation and Northern Atlantic Oscillation (AO and NAO respectively). For most of the winter, both have been in positive territory, meaning the jet stream is displaced further to the north over our part of the world than what is average. Thus, cold air is bottled up further north. This is a simplified explanation of why we've been mild, but definitely a few of the reasons we have yet to see much wintry weather.

The forecast for the AO and NAO shows a return to neutral, if not slightly negative territory. This would in theory bring more of an active pattern, allowing for colder air and the possibility of snow. However, our long-term forecast models show no signs of a winter storm as January ends and February rolls in. The Climate Prediction Center puts together monthly outlooks for temperature and precipitation. The map above displays their projection for temperatures in February. They continue to show above-normal temperatures overall for much of the country, which I would agree with based upon the forecasted long-term weather patterns. We'll just have to keep our eyes on the AO and NAO forecasts in case it shows a stronger negative trend.

Thus, early spring-like weather will continue to confuse our already-budding trees and give us a break on our electric and gas bills!

Be sure to follow me on Twitter: @GroganontheGO and "like" me on Facebook!