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Next, let’s take a look at the Significant Events for the month of January. Click to view larger view. <\/p>\n Next, let’s examine the 500mb Height and Anomaly map. When you look at the 500mb map, you can get a sense where ridges and troughs setup. The shades of red indicate ridging, while the shades of blue indicate troughing.\u00a0 Click on the map below to bring up\u00a0January of 2011. Next let’s compare the two.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n Let’s compare\u00a0January of this year to last year. When you examine January of of this year to last year, there were major differences. This year significant height falls occurred over Alaska. What we see here is the Polar Vortex or a strong upper level low.\u00a0 This feature has been over Alaska not only this month, but as far back November.\u00a0 So, its been there for quite some time. Meanwhile,\u00a0over the lower 48, ridging developed over Southwestern US and over the northeastern Atlantic, east of Greenland. This time last year, we had a totally different setup. Remembering back to last January of 2011,\u00a0it was one that featured\u00a0colder than average and\u00a0significant wintry weather over the Eastern US. What really stood out was the amount of ridging that occured over the Western US, Alaska and Greenland. If you take a look at the telleconnections from last year, the Arctic Oscillation (AO) was very negative (i.e, values down to -3) and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) was also negative (i.e, -2). For this year, the opposite has occurred, where the AO has been more on the positive cycle (i.e., +3 to +4)\u00a0as well as the NAO (i.e +1 to +2). This year’s winter season was really absent compared to what Russia and Europe have seen.\u00a0 So, as you can see, lots of differences.<\/p>\n Next, let’s take\u00a0as we move from January to February of last year.\u00a0 One of the things you’ll notice, the real wintry type pattern\u00a0the Eastern US faced began to break down.\u00a0 Notice more shades of\u00a0blue, which indicate height falls\u00a0that began to develop\u00a0over Greenland.\u00a0 If we take a look into the telleconnection indices as I mentioned above, the AO went from a very negative state to a strongly positive one with values getting into the +2 to 3 range.\u00a0 The NAO began to reach slightly positive.\u00a0 What you’ll see and will be discussed in the February Climate Review was that\u00a0the Midwest would be the next major target for a massive blizzard.\u00a0 As you’ll see the pattern became quite favorable for significant snow and cold for the Central US.\u00a0 So, that pretty much will do it\u00a0for January of 2012.\u00a0 For a complete report for this month, head over\u00a0National Climate Data Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Good\u00a0Evening Everyone, Its that time again.\u00a0 Let’s take a look at\u00a0January of 2012. The first image shows what happen globally with regard to weather hazards. If you click on the image below, you will able to see it much larger. Next, let’s take a look at the Significant Events for the month of January. … <\/p>\n
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