(WSYR-TV, Syracuse) Wow, what another great stretch of weather! It was nice and warm today, so I figured a good opportunity to get one last mow done. Then the mower was cleaned up and stored for the winter. Out came the snow blower, but as the FedEx guy joked as he stopped out in front of my house, only in our area could you have need for both a lawnmower and snowblower at the same time!
Anyway, today was our 13th 60 degree day this November. We're tied for the record at 13, with conceivably 2 more days. That's remarkable. If we can get 60 the next couple of days, that will mean HALF of the days this month were 60 degrees or better! Right now, as of 11/24, we were third warmest November on record. With a blend of warm, as well as seasonable temperatures through the rest of the month, it might be tall order to crack the top 2 spots. We shall see.
There has been some wicked cold air in Alaska and northwestern Canada for the past couple of weeks. I know Jim alluded to that in one of his blog postings. It seems as though some of that air will be on the move southward. It will moderate some as it's headed our way, but the writing is on the wall that we'll see our temperatures trend downward through next week.
The one thing that has remained constant is the inability for the cold air (at least looking out into the future on our computer models) to become firmly established. In other words, the cold may get in here for a couple of days, but the trough in the jet stream that has kept the cold air in the western US, re-loads, meaning a return to milder southwest flow aloft over us.
There are signs that a more potent surge of arctic air may head south toward the lower 48 in a couple weeks or so, but we're just not sure yet exactly where. The computer models that we use to make the 7-day forecast have been wildly inconsitent, which tells me that the atmosphere is undergoing or is about to undergo some sort of change. We just can't put our finger on it yet.
We've got a month to go until Christmas. If you're dreaming of a White Christmas, you can have solace in the fact that according to the National Climate Data Center, the odds of Syracuse having an inch of snow on the ground for Christmas is 70%.
