It was a fab holiday weekend here in the high country. Temps on Sunday hit upper 50s….about the same as Bishop some 4000 lower in elevation. Now that’s an inversion! We’ll its no secret….we want more snow! So what are the prospects for that in the near and distant future?

1st SSTA’s

The Dweebs like them even more now than where they were earlier in the Fall:

The Sea Surface temps over the eastern pacific are much cooler than normal now as compared to the warming that came in late last Summer. That is important because in the subtropics and tropics, cool water creates sinking air. Further north, it  promotes  lower  1000mb-500 mb thickness and with it,  the tendency for deeper troughs in the winter. The current pacific SSTA set-up calls for more trofs over the west and just offshore than last year, when the core of cold was well west off the coast. So the SSTA set up is quite good off the west coast for California.

2nd progression.

The pattern is not blocked negatively for California up over the higher Lat’s.  I think in that the Arctic oscillation is strongly in its positive phase…. and that much of the real cold air is concentrated up over the higher Lats.  That will change later in the season. Something will trigger that cold air to break up and move south like a possible strato-warming event or a strengthening negative QBO which favors higher pressure over the cold northern Lat’s.

More importantly….there is a strong MJO over the Indian Ocean that is progressive. If it make its as far east as the Phase Space 5 then the Odds for an IOP event increase. Look for retrogression in the long wave features sometime next week.

 

Currently, we are beginning to experience more longitudinal flow over the eastern PAC. We will shift to a colder patten later this week with storms dropping much of there moisture over the PAC NW then dropping south through the great basin. The first system that will effect us will be this Thursday. It’s a Cold…snow showery pattern with strong NE winds and light up slope precip. (Closed or cut off low over So-Ca possible

Later in the month the pattern may intensify with the possibly a cut off low near Tonopah, NV (Tonopah Low). “If” the MJO gets into phase space 5, we should have retrogression then west coast trofing in December. However….although the MJO phase space is hinting at that…the GSDM (GWO) is not.

 

Stay Tuned…..

 

 

The Dweeber………………………..:-)

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Disclaimer: I have been a hobbyist meteorologist for over 30 years here in the Mammoth area and I do this for my personal enjoyment. The National Weather Service saves lives every day . . . I do not. When making important planning decisions please use information provided by the National Weather Service as they are the most knowledgeable and accurate information source available today.