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hamburgerman7070 wrote:I read something about strong convection in the Indian ocean leading to ridge over Alaska in extended. That's why I mentioned about stj being cut off since we got the cold air in place right now. A good SSW event could do the trick if it happens. Ntxw, how long can this cold pattern last? Any ideas?
The strongest tropical convection has been over the eastern Indian Ocean and far Western Pacific. This has fed into a trough near Kamchatka in the vicinity of Sea of Okhotsk. This is important to understand. Bubba and orangeblood in past pages have done a fantastic job laying out the permanent players so far this winter. The MJO interference has prevented the normal Nina torches as even help established the +PNA. The SST configuration (in tandem with the persistent Sea of Okhotsk cyclogenesis) have created a wave train and that propped up the -EPO downstream.This is the established winter pattern, and it's shown it can get cold easily with it in North America. So when you see guidance relax from it, it's probably only short term before it will go right back to where forcing favors it. In most winters you tend to know early on based on these background forcings if a warm or cold tendencies once the wavelengths get longer. The pattern that created the snow in early December is important as it was insight to this favor-ability.
In terms of storms the +PNA has not been kind to the northern half of Texas wintry precip wise. The southern half of the state benefits from this much more as their climo is more in line with the gulf coast regions. +PNA favors positive tilt troughs that when tapped by the gulf is better for them. For the northern half of the state we need the PNA to relax and allow S/Ws to dig into the west. Models have tried to do this several times but it always ends up more east and PNA dominant. A second way is for the AO and NAO to clog up the pattern but they are in a semi quasi positive state for years.
Make no doubt about it, this is no 2011-2012 redux. More in line with 2000-2001 and 2013-2014 when looking at the NPAC
Winters are nice down here, we get quite a few days of "London in the Valley" Cloudy Drizzle with temperatures in the 40s, that is our winter weather 
