Hey NBC Action Weather bloggers,
Happy New Year from the NBC Action Weather Team! We hope you had a great holiday season. I will be going into extensive detail today on what we believe to be this year's LRC, and I will be making a forecast based on what we now know. This forecast will be a 45 day long prognostication into what we think will happen between now and the middle of February. But, first, here are my two favorite pictures from the past week. We had forecast a 55% chance of a white Christmas before I left on vacation, and we also precicted three snowstorms during the last 10 days of the year and all of them happened.
This first picture shows Breezy (with the evil eyes) and Stormy enjoying the huge snowflakes at 4 AM on December 28th. We had gone on a three mile walk in the snow. They love it! We had over one inch in that 4 to 5 AM hour.
This second picture, below, shows Stormy & Breezy on an ice foggy morning one day later.
We had 6 snowstorms in our local region since December 1st. And, we had a very heavy rain event, a major ice storm, and more. It has been an absolutely fascinating winter season thus far, and the worst of winter is still ahead of us! The coldest air of the season will be building in Canada during the next 15 days and it is going to come down and affect us, but when? Let's talk about it.
THE LRC.......What is it?
For those of you new to NBC Action News and our weather blog, the LRC will be new to you. It is a theory, and I believe a major discovery in meteorology, that I have come up with in the past 20 years. It was named by you, the bloggers! LRC stands for Lezak's Recurring Cycle. There are two main parts to my theory:
1. "Long term" longwave troughs and ridges become established between October 1st and November 10th. These longwaves will help define the storm tracks for, not just the winter, but from October through winter, spring, and the next summer, until the pattern morphs, transitions into a unique pattern again next fall.
2. The weather pattern cycles and repeats over and over again. The first cycle likely begins in October. Once the weather pattern starts repeating, then we can "know" it better and begin making accurate long range predicitons. We have been making these accurate predictions the past two years, some call it coincidence when our forecasts have come through. But, last year we accurately predicted "the storm" to return every 45 days or so. And, we predicted the killing April freeze weeks ahead of time, while other forecasts had predicted winter to be over. Not only did we have the very bad freeze but "the storm" also returned right on schedule with a rare mid April snowstorm
LRC 2007-2008
We, at this moment, believe that we are in a 54 day cycle this year. This was found in the first two weeks of December, when we noticed the October storm systems repeating. If you look back in our blog entries from October, we were anticipating those big, wet storm systems to return, but we just weren't sure when. And, now we "know" that they will be coming back and soon. The series of 4 storm systems that happened from December 1st through December 21st will likely return between January 24th and February 15th. We will have our long range forecast, all the way through mid February, at the end of this entry when I get it prepared later today.
The warming trend moving in right now is right on schedule with this repeating pattern. Look below at the weather map on November 10th, 2007 (54 days from January 3rd). This is directly related to what is happening right now.
On the above map, 54 days ago tomorrow, the jet stream was strong over the Pacific and moving in with a ridge heading out into the plains. This is what is forecast to happen this week and the warm up is right on schedule. But, the worst of winter is ahead of us as we can see what to expect in the next two to three weeks below. This next map is from November 22nd. This would be happening within 12 days and it begins the part of the cycle that should allow the coldest air of the season to build in Canada and then it will likely blast into the United States between January 15th and 25th. Before this happens we should have one more cold shot and one more warm up. Then it is back to a long stretch of winter, the coldest air of the season, and likely a few snowstorms that will be bigger, more widespread, and possibly record breaking. The most likely spot for the record breaking snow will be across the same areas that have been getting hit thus far, from Topeka to St. Joseph to the Iowa border.
Look at the map below. This is the part of the pattern that will bring cross polar flow (crossing the North Pole) and then dropping all the way down the west coast. This occurred on November 30, 2007. So, add 54 days to this and it will be returning around January 23rd, give or take a few days. For those of you skeptics of this theory, is it just going to be a coincidence when these parts of the weather pattern return? Remember, the air across Canada will be getting colder and colder over the next two weeks. And, the coldest weather of this winter is likely between January 15th and February 15th.
The series of four storm systems is then also likely right after the coldest air arrives later in January. So, with a very cold air mass in place and a series of storm systems moving across you can see why I make the conclusion that our biggest winter storms will likely occur during that 30 day stretch from mid January to mid February.
Now remember part 1 to my theory. The "long term" longwave ridges and troughs are established, and not budging through this winter, spring and even into summer. Whether you believe in the cycle part of my theory or not, you can not deny the fact that the weather pattern has been producing consistent storm systems and strengthening and weakening in similar spots all season long. One of these "long term" longwave troughs is centered near the middle of Missouri. This is why storm systems seem to intensify right near Kansas City. We can use our theory to look back, look forward, and make accurate predictions, not just in the longer range, but also as storm systems approach in the shorter term. The LRC has continued to provide us with a huge forecasting advantage over our competition and the National Weather Service. I am laying it out there for them all to see as I do believe this is a major discovery and we will continue working on this in the next few years until we come up with even more proof, evidence, etc.
For those of you wanting to criticize our winter forecast issued in November, well, go ahead. Remember, we make that forecast before we know the cycle length. There is still a lot of uncertainty at that time, but we make that forecast based on part 1 of the theory, the "long term" longwaves. I didn't anticipate this much cold air. So, the forecast may be off, we'll look at that at the end of the season, but this says nothing about whether the LRC exists. It certainly does, in our opinion. Just watch as we move through the rest of this season.
45 day forecast issued January 2nd:
January 3-15th: There will be two big warming stretches that could put us up into the 60s a couple of days. But, it will be broken up by two storm systems. One of the storms will arrive around January 8th-9th. This one will produce some rain and possibly some snow, but it is a storm that will intensify as it passes us. The second storm will arrive around January 12th -15th. This one could come as a very cold air mass is moving in from Canada.
January 15th-25th:
Arctic air will build in strength across Canada. It will be the coldest air of this entire winter up there with temperatures possibly down to 40 degrees below zero or even lower. A couple of strong Arctic fronts will move through Kansas City and the United States should go into the deep freeze before the end of the month.
January 25th -February 20th:
The series of wet and strong storm systems that affected us in October and again in December will return. I think they will be even stronger this time. And, the Arctic air will be around for each of the storm systems. We will have at least 4, and perhaps as many as 7 storm systems between January 25th and February 20th.
This is how we see the pattern cycling right now. This is a long range projection, based on the LRC. We believe this is around a 54 day cycle. So, this all will repeat again with the stormy and wet part of the pattern returning in the second half of March. Another Arctic air mass is likely then, so watch out for a grand finale to this crazy winter before spring truely shows up. Some parts of our viewing area could easily get close to 50 inches of snow this winter.
Gary