Powerful Arctic Blast To Grip North America; “Big Cold Blast” And Spring Snow For Australia And New Zealand; + 25 Sunspots
Powerful Arctic Blast To Grip North America
The models are gaining confidence: an Arctic blast is inbound, one on course to deliver freezing lows as far south as Texas and the first shot of Lake Effect snow to the Great Lakes.
Records will fall.
The cold is already building in the far north.
A low of -26.2C (-15.2F) was posted by Beaver Creek, YT this morning — the Yukon’s lowest temperature of the season. The following morning dipped even lower, with -27.9C (-18.2F) endured in Margaret Lake (close to the Alaskan border).
As we near the weekend, a buckling jet will send cold polar air crashing through Canada and into the Lower 48.
Central states will prove something of a battleground this weekend –blues vs reds– but by Sunday the polar air mass should have won out and continue its descension south soon after, sweeping the likes of Texas by Monday and the Southeast by Wednesday.
These are exceptional lows that are inbound, as much as 25C below the seasonal norm and across a vast portion of the U.S., too.
“Ready or Not, Here it Comes,” reads the title of a recent ktvh.com article, which, focusing on Montana, warns of “a major snowstorm with record cold … overnight lows could drop below zero (F) by late this week.”
The incoming snow totals look equally impressive.
Parts of Montana are forecast more than a foot; as a result, winter storm watches and warnings are in place.
The West, in particular, is readying for a Halloween pounding, which will no doubt bring back unwanted hauntings of last winter’s historic ordeal.
The first shot of lake effect snow is also preparing to clip the Great Lakes.
While in the Sierra Nevada, following the record-smashing snowfall of last season, the region is bracing for an early start on the snow this time round. Two strong cold fronts are due to hit the Bay Area, dropping serious dumpings in the Lake Tahoe area.
The calendar may still read October but winter is upon us.
Let’s keep score: Arctic Outbreak #1
And note also the fresh pounding Greenland is due to receive which will add to the historic SMB gains posted late last week:
“Big Cold Blast” And Spring Snow For Australia And New Zealand
“An incoming wintry blast” will hit NZ’s South Island and a swath of Australia this week, reports weatherwatch.co.nz.
Australia will turn ‘blue’ starting Wednesday (Oct 25), with New Zealand’s “cold change” forecast to set in Thursday and Friday.
From Tasmania through South Australia and into Victoria, Australia will endure a proper late-season chill:
Spring snow is likely across the alpine regions.
According to the GFS, a fresh 40 to 50 cm (16 to 20 inches) will accumulate atop New Zealand mountain ranges, with similar totals dropping on Tasmania’s peaks:
25 Sunspots
Over the past few months, solar activity has quietened. While over the past few weeks, sunspot counts have dropped further still leaving the solar disk almost blank.
‘Sunspot lulls’ are normal statistical fluctuations even during strong cycles, and Solar Cycle 25 will bounce back at some point.
But still, the lowly 25 sunspots that currently pepper the Earth-facing solar disk (Oct 24) is the lowest count since the 23 of April 2.
Some contend that the peak of Solar Cycle 25 is already in.
I’m on the fence.
But this hush is compelling.
If I was a country in the Middle East I would take notice that the world is starting to freeze during a solar max and I am sitting on one of the only warm places the earth will provide as we descend into the Grand Minimum. I would also notice that the super power buzzards like the USA, China and Russia are circling.
Instead of letting superpowers instigate trouble they should drop their differences and develop a mutual defense strategy or they will all lose.
I’ve learned in meteorology never to trust anything beyond 6 days, even with todays often inaccurate 7 day forecasts. These forecasts, especially the graphic display we see all the time, are often completely wrong beyond 5 days. I can’t stand even looking in that direction (where the screens are) which display these ridiculous forecasts. (such as hotel TV’s or others in public areas) The only certainty we have in meteorology is “after it hits.”
So I prefer to stay within 6 days of the various model runs. Anything beyond that time frame is pure speculation and subject to large errors. One example was in Nov 2014, when the GFS thickness showed 70 F for Charleston on Nov.1st. This was shown 6 days ahead of time. When we arrived there, it was 46F in the afternoon on Nov 1st at CHS and snow was falling in the upstate.
On I-90 an hour East of Seattle snow forecast tonight and tomorrow. Snow forecast from there 1000 miles all the way to Winnipeg tomorrow morning.
https://wsdot.com/travel/real-time/mountainpasses/Snoqualmie
https://www.windy.com/-Show—add-more-layers/overlays?rain,2023102518,48.019,-109.116,5,i:pressure,m:eZDadfj
Anyone ever read anything from Miles Mathis? He claims the air force is under reporting sun spots and this current cycle is much higher than cycle 24. He claims the grand solar minimum is not going to happen. I bring this up because someone pointed me to his information and found it interesting.
I should think many more groups than just the air force (the US Air Force?) can determine sunspot activity.
The CO2 warmest are more a church than a science.
Solar cycles are approx. 11.5 years or so. IF SC 25 has peaked, would we expect it to be a short cycle or might the drift to the minimum still occur at about the previously projected date?
Solar cycles can be as short as 10 years. I think the official start and end of a solar is determined by the first and last sun spots with a given polarity. If the current cycle has spots that are positively charged on the left and negative on the right then this will be reversed in cycle 26. The minimum may still occur at the predicted date, but it may be an extended minimum i.e. the last sun spot with cycle 25 polarity may occur when predicted but it may of been preceded by several years with very few spots.
Thanks for the explanation, Matt.
Apparently solar cycles can be down in the 8’s.
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https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023AV000964
The 8-Year Solar Cycle During the Maunder Minimum
Limei Yan, Fei He, Xinan Yue, Yong Wei, Yuqi Wang, Si Chen, Kai Fan, Hui Tian, Jiansen He, Qiugang Zong, Lidong Xia
First published: 03 October 2023
Key Points
Give a definitive observational evidence of an 8-year solar cycle during Maunder Minimum
The distinct solar dynamo during the Maunder Minimum is not chaotic
A consistent dynamo explanation is a superposition of the dipole (22 years) and the quadrupole (∼13–15 years) with nearly equal amplitude
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BTW, I’m with Cap and “on the fence” as to whether or not the SC 25 peak is in. Is the current low activity a “lull”, or something else? I’ll want to see more data before jumping to conclusions. Still, the research (models) I’ve seen say that SC 25 should be similar to or lower than SC 24, and SC 26 should be lower than both. Time will tell, but we should have a better ideal after another 3-6 mo. of SC 25 data.
G’Day Cap, that cold weather, cool change will no on Friday, for a south East Queensland, wth a predicted max of 19 degrees Celsius, for the Lockyer valley, 16 for Toowoomba and 20 for Brisbane, has been a mini drought out this way, good rains predicted for Thursday through Saturday, grass is brown, some trees have lost leaves, but are covered in the spring flowers..