By MARK HANOK
The weather pattern will
change from mid-winter in
late October to very mild
and dry in early November
— thanks to an absolutely
amazing “reverse temperature
anomaly that resulted
from the intense Nor’Easter
on Tuesday.
As a rapidly intensifying
storm system turned into a
classic early winter-like
Nor’Easter over the Delmarva
Peninsula, heavy,
wet snow fell over the Western
Catskills all day; with
temperatures at or below
freezing all day over higher
elevations, there was up to
a foot of snow, and 20” in
Shandaken in the central
Catskills.
At valley locations like
our weather station in
Otego, all of the accumulating
snow occurred overnight
with two inches of
snow, and even though a
steady light to moderate
snow continued all day,
there were no additional
accumulations; highs in the
low to mid-30’s. Heavy
snow occurred from the Adirondacks
southwestward
to the central Appalachians.
There were even a few
inches of wet snow in the
higher terrain of northwestern
New Jersey.
The intense storm system
was centered just south
of Long Island by early
Tuesday evening, and unseasonably
cold air wrapped
around the storm on strong
northwesterly winds, pushing
far to the south. At the
same time, a large Canadian
high dipped southward
to the southern Great
Plains and Deep South. In
the strong southerly flow
ahead of the storm, the
high was 64 degrees at Caribou,
Maine.
With brisk northwest
winds and crystal clear
skies, the high was just 58
degrees at Jacksonville and
59 degrees at Tallahassee,
Florida, and only 50 degrees
at Atlanta, a record
low maximum temperature
for so early in the season.
Downsloping westerly
winds, sent the mercury
soaring to a record-breaking
80 degrees at Great
Falls and 76 degrees at Cut
Bank, Montana, and 62 degrees
at Bismarck, North
Dakota.
As a large ridge of high
pressure builds across the
mid-Atlantic states and
southwest flow takes over,
and brilliant sunshine will
prevail all day in Friday
with highs in the low 50’s.
The beautiful weather will
continue on Saturday with
a southwesterly flow ahead
of a weak cold front approaching
the eastern
Great Lakes. A weak cold
front will cross our region
early Saturday, with only a
few passing clouds and no
precipitation; the front will
only reinforce an already
very dry weather pattern.
With partly sunny skies
and a northwest breeze,
highs will be from 45 to 50
degrees. Mostly sunny skies
will continue on Sunday
with highs again in the mid
to upper 40’s.
A zonal west to east flow
across the nation will continue
the dry conditions all
of next week. On Monday,
skies will be mostly sunny
with highs in the low 50’s.
Tuesday and Wednesday
will feature spectacular Indian
summer weather: sunny
to partly sunny skies
and highs from 55 to 60 degrees.
Mark Hanok is an Otego based
meteorologist. You
can visit him on the World
Wide Web at http://members.
aol.com/weathergazette.
Weather Watch
October 30, 2008
Weather Watch
Thanks to an extreme upside-down temperature pattern, a prolonged stretch of Indian Summer is on the way
- Weather Watch
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- Weather watch The Susquehanna River level will be unusually low for the General Clinton Canoe Regatta during Memorial Day weekend.
- Weather Watch It’s really uncanny how the very dry weather pattern has continued in this area despite the succession of major storms that have moved to the west and south.
- Weather Watch Now that north has become a synonym for sunshine and south has become a synonym for rain, there’s no way that this extremely dry weather pattern can change at least for the next four weeks.
- Weather Watch March was the third straight month with below normal precipitation, and it looks like April will also turn out to be drier than normal.
- Weather Watch Temperatures were near normal in March, with precipitation around an inch below normal.
- Weather Watch On Friday a major storm will move to the Ohio Valley, while high pressure builds southward from eastern Canada. Skies will be partly sunny with highs from 55 to 60 degrees.
- Weather Watch When it’s warmer to the north and cooler to the south, it’s so easy to get into an extremely dry weather pattern in Otsego County. The weather forecast in last week’s weather column was more optimistic than other local weather forecasts, but the weather was actually much better than even we predicted.
- Weather Watch The jet stream will shift southward this week and a series of low pressure systems will move well to our south.
- Weather Watch Exactly as we predicted at the beginning of the month, it was one of the driest Februaries on record in Otsego County and throughout most of central and eastern New York. Thanks to the extreme upside-down temperature pattern with much warmer weather in Montana than in Georgia, and strong winds on Monday and Tuesday, an extremely dry weather pattern will be the theme for at least the next two to three weeks.
- Weather Watch Exactly as we’ve been predicting for the past month, this is turning out to be an exceptionally dry February - one of the driest on record in central and eastern New York.
- More Weather Watch Headlines
