Raleigh Weather Discussion
After a cool, wet start this morning, we will see a warming trend begin with spring like temperatures setting in for mid-week. We will probably flirt with 70 tomorrow and likely exceed it on Wednesday, in fact mid 70s are reachable. To go along with this warmth, a cold front will pass through the area Wednesday evening with a chance for a squall line to pass through with locally heavy rain and strong winds. Thermodynamics will be somewhat lacking, but most high resolution modeling I have seen shows a line of storms organizing and moving across the Triangle Wednesday evening with the threat for winds gusts of 50-60mph in some cells. The SPC has the area in a slight risk of severe thunderstorms on Wednesday as well.
This front will pass through with cooler and more normal early February temperatures returning with highs likely in the upper 40s to mid 50s the rest of the forecast period and lows in the 20s to low to mid 30s. WE will see a couple of moisture-starved upper level disturbances move through one on Friday, which will likely just bring clouds and another Saturday night into Sunday morning which could bring an isolated shower. As of now it looks like either one of these systems if they produced precipitation it would be very light and most likely in the form of rain. The European model and the other operational models now show no significant winter storm threats through the next 10 days, although at this time of the year the models can change very quickly. Overall though, the pattern doesn’t look very favorable for a winter storm at this moment.
National Extended Weather Forecast/Discussion
While in the means it looks like we will see ridging in the Gulf of Alaska and western Canada, potentially even into Alaska. However, one important change appears to take place. A strong polar vortex is no longer showing up in North America. It appears that there will be a strong in Europe and east Asia, but generally not in North America. Therefore, we may see a generally mild pattern develop as we head into the 2nd week of February. So there are certainly warmer signals today for the extended period as compared to how it looked Friday.
Now with that said the CFS does show a cooler pattern for that week and also into week 3 and 4. The MJO pulse has stalled in phases 7, and model forecasts do not take the pulse beyond phase 1 over the next few weeks, so there is an argument that cooler trends could emerge. I am not convinced in the warmer outlooks currently put out there by the ensembles, but I also have to look at the model evidence right now which is certainly not very cold looking.
So, I wouldn’t be surprised to see cooler trends in the extended models as we progress this week, but for now, it does not look too cold as we head into the middle of the month.
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