By MARK HANOK
When Montana and North Dakota got much warmer
weather than northern Florida early last week, we correctly
predicted that the wintry conditions would quickly
give way to Indian Summer. The jet stream retreated far
to the north, with all the major storms far to our west or
along the coast well to our south. With this kind of pattern,
the next significant snowfall will be many weeks
away, and any change to a classic late autumn weather
pattern may not occur until Thanksgiving week. On Election
Day a developing storm system over the northern
Great Plains moved very slowly eastward, with a southwest
flow of unseasonably warm air well ahead of the low.
At the same time, high pressure remained in place over
New England, while an intensifying storm system east of
Cape Hatteras not only effectively blocked the western
low, it caused another wild upside-down temperature pattern.
Cool easterly winds blowing counterclockwise
around the low, kept temperatures well below normal
from the east coast of Florida northward to the Virginia
coast. The high was just 66 degrees at Jacksonville, Florida,
and with a cool rain all day the high at Raleigh was
only 58 degrees. At the same time, the mercury soared to
the mid-70’s in northern Michigan, and to 71 degrees at
Rochester, NY and at Minneapolis.
The “reverse temperature anomaly” signaled a continuation
of very mild, dry weather in the Western Catskills,
and on Friday a very mild southwesterly flow will send
temperatures to the mid-60’s with partly sunny skies.
áShowers will finally arrive Friday night and continue
early Saturday morning as a cold front approaches from
the west. A dry slow just ahead of low pressure that will
lift northward to the western Great Lakes, will bring
some partial sunshine mid-day Saturday, then a few
showers as the front crosses our region later in the afternon
and evening; highs on Saturday from 57 to 62 degrees.
Much cooler air will take over on northwest winds
on Saturday night, with the chance of rain or snow showers.
It will seem cold on Sunday, but we’re only getting
back to normal temperatures for the second week of November;
with variable cloudiness and some sunshine and
a northwets wind; highs will be from 45 to 50 degrees;
there’s the chance of a few showers. As a northwest flow
continues on Monday and Tuesday, look for intervals of
clouds and sunshine and highs in the mid to uppr 40’s.
Mark Hanok is an Otego-based meteorologist. You
can visit him on the World Wide Web at http://members.
aol.com/weathergazette.
Weather Watch
November 6, 2008
Weather Watch
- 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
