It’s been a COLD winter!! How cold? Well, all last winter we had 11 days where temps fell below zero and this year we have accumulated 30 days below zero!!! I really don’t see an end to this bitter cold until around the 21st. Why the 21st? Well we will start to go into phase 2 of the LRC cycle:
Courtesy: weather 2020
Phase 2 consists of a general NW flow which will bring us an occasional clipper with snow and up and down temps for about a 2 week stretch before we go back into the “stormy” part of the cycle around mid March. I’ve had a lot of questions about the stormy cycle we are currently in and how everything is missing us to the south. Simple answer is because of the Arctic Oscillation being in a negative phase. This allows Arctic air to dump into the N. Plains:
Courtesy weather2020
That big dip in the AO shoves the storm track south. The LRC had the storms timed perfectly BUT just south of us. So what happens next “stormy” cycle starting in mid March? As the jet moves north into spring and AO weakens a bit we are more likely to see those storms effect the N. Plains (60%) Now, if the AO remains strongly negative come mid March, then the storms will stay to our south. Sounds simple, right? Basically, the LRC is the center piece of the atmospheric puzzle but other things can and do influence the LRC storms.
