EPAC Special Tropical Statement. Questions on El Nino and Winter of 2019 Abound... Stay Tuned for Surprises! Weather These Days is Like the Stock Market...

Eastern Pacific

January 2019

Putting this into the blog today and talking about it because anything that happens out of the ordinary needs discussing and bears watching. Yes I said bear.. it's kind of an old joke to some of us.. but true. And we are all watching the Stock Market even if we don't have money invested as we all have interests that it could affect down the line. The same with a system like this in that what happens there doesn't remain there it gets caught up in the flow. So yes...there's a circle in the Eastern Pacific and the National Hurricane Center decided to put out a Special Tropical Statement about it in January.

Orange circle up.

Discussion below.

Yes I know it's January.

Yes they start earlier than the Atlantic.

But rarely this early.

But weather happens.

Climate is the long term average.

Out of season development can happen.

Regardless of development....

Gale Force Winds likely over the weekend!

Why do we care?

What begins there....

...often ends up here.

Here being the East Coast.

That flow.... 

The signature of the last month.

Put it in motion:

Moisture caught in the flow...

A pattern seemingly stuck.

But is it?

I've spoken about this with a few of my friends lately in that it seems despite all the headlines and comments made we are in a strange time with mixed signals weather wise. There's a lot of volatility going on both in the market and in the weather world. We had an extremely cold winter like period during the fall in November where we had surprise snow storms in New York and Raleigh got a nice sampling of the winter stuff.... however December rolled in with warmer temperatures (that were forecast) and all we've seen is rain, rain and more rain. Raleigh broke records in 2018 for rainfall totals due to a wet year and two hurricanes that dumped huge amounts of tropical rain on us and now deeper into Winter we have rain from a moist subtropical flow. Where do we go from here? Oklahoma City has had warm temperatures yet they cooled off enough to get snow, freezing rain and sleet yesterday finally. Snow lovers there better be happy. But, the snow is going to melt fast the way it did here in Raleigh as temperatures rose fast into the 60s following the snow. Sound a bit like the stock market?

El Nino is constantly being discussed and I mean constantly on any given day in the weather world. As I have said nonstop here online for old timers no two El Ninos are the same and no two hurricane seasons are the same. The variance in the weather patterns as the Northern Jet hands off to the Southern Jet to where they both meet up for a quick fling and then go back to doing their thing defines what our weather is like on a day to day basis on the East Coast.

Add in a big player that produces gale force winds over the weekend and a big sloppy storm into California and that impacts weather in every city from California to New Jersey down the weather road. The big player that seemingly is in hiding is the flow that dips down from the Arctic and until that sleeping bear wakes up we are in for more wet, wicked, unseasonably warm winter rain patterns. As usual when it's warm here it's cold in Europe and it's snowing in Greece as I type this where my brother lives. Weather in the South Atlantic was so problematic a few days ago they rerouted my other brother's cruise ship to a different port. When we don't have the usual suspects on the weather map we often end up with unusual weather. So keep watching. Make sure those weather apps are activated as I'm getting the sense more and more that we may end up with some surprise weather on the East Coast somewhere. There's also a huge area off the East coast producing high surf in some places. And the beat goes on... 

Personally I agree.

Something bothering me too..

Questions that will get answers soon.

May you have an awesome weekend! Don't believe those constant long term predictions of snow that get pushed off every day to a later date on your weather apps but do believe the weather app when it says tornadoes or severe weather or fog may show up in your designated area in the next six to twelve hours. Pay attention!

Besos BobbiStorm

@bobbistorm on Twitter... follow me there for fast weather updates.

Ps.... a chaser chases and when there is a lack of hurricanes or snow to chase they chase whatever is interesting. Mike chased fog last night on Facebook and his viewers were excited to see him go live. And the fog that was ghost like indeed on the field near where he lives lit up by bright lights was enchanting to watch. Make sure you follow him on Facebook... Lord only knows where that boy will show up when he's reading to chase someone or something or some kind of weather ;)https://www.facebook.com/mikesweatherpage/