Christmas storm

The situation developing for next week is complex and evolving.  There are three pieces of energy that may or may not coalesce into a powerful storm for the Great Lakes and NE regions giving rain, freezing rain, snow or a combination of the three.  So the models are still figuring out what, where, and how much.  Fact remains that something of significance is occurring the middle of next week.  I would strongly recommend that you avoid making significant travel plans for Christmas Eve and Day.

Christmas Eve storm of 2014...

Starting to get moderately excited about a system that's appearing on all the midrange models.   What the Euro is showing is the same as if I drew the maps.  You get the picture.
Stay tuned.

Snow map of the east coast snow...

Passing us by...again.

Recent warm weather...

Before anybody starts claiming climate change, here are the record highs:

Oct. 13: 26.3C in 1995 (2014: 17.1C)
Oct. 14: 24.4C in 1956 (2014: 26.0C, a new record)
Oct. 15: 25.6C in 1956 (2014: 23.5C)
Oct. 16: 26.7C in 1947 (!) (I doubt we are getting anywhere close to that high today)
Oct. 17: 26.7C in 1947(another one!)
Oct. 18: 26.1C in 1947

Apparently October 1956 and 1947 were warm ones in Ottawa...

Sign of things to come?

Maaaaaaybe....

(source)

Sea Ice update...

We are a couple weeks from the Arctic sea ice minimum.   I thought I'd give an update of where global sea ice is at. 

 

Starting with the Antarctic:  still well above normal

 

 

The Arctic Sea ice is approaching this year's minimum.  As of now it looks like it'll be pretty close to last years minimum, which was in the middle of the pack of the last dozen.   Meaning there is no Arctic Ice death spiral.

If we looks an the anomaly graph, we can also that the ice has stabilized.  The extreme minimum of 2012 caused by a strong Arctic storm, has stopped the wild gyrations as we can see in this graph.

 

The NW passage also won't be open this year as the channels are jammed with old or new thick ice.

 

 

Quick look at the week

Hot and humid with popcorn thunderstorms today, tomorrow and perhaps into Wednesday.  The remainder of the weeks gets cooler but remains unsettled until Friday.  The weekend is looking pretty good.

As side note, after a month into the season, the Atlantic tropics are finally popping into action.   Eastern North Carolina will likely be hit with what could be a major hurricane("Arthur") this Friday, spoiling 4th of July celebrations for a lot of people.

Oh and welcome to summer

As of 6:51 AM tomorrow morning, the sun will reach its most northern apex.   Then the days will start getting shorter....