Thanksgiving and Beyond Forecast

The last several days have been a roller coaster of temperature swings with one or two warm days followed by a couple of cool days. Reinforcing cold fronts have been responsible for this, and this pattern looks to continue for the next 6 days. The upper air pattern flattens out by the weekend which will bump temperatures upward, but this will be short lived as another cold front and trough dip down into the South early next week. The latest model guidance indicates that the cold front will swing through the area Monday and bring us a decent shot of rain. Behind the front, I think we transition back to colder air for Tuesday and Wednesday. With the source region of the Canadian air mass originating from Manitoba, I think temperatures will be cold but not significantly cold. If the source region were further east, I would expect even colder air given that temperatures in Ontario and Quebec are 1-4 standard deviations below normal. Standard deviations in Manitoba are 0 to 1 below normal so this should allow colder air but nothing record setting. Still, I wouldn't discount the possibility that highs next Tuesday don't make it out of the 40s.




Given the near neutral North Atlantic Oscillation, the cold air won't have a long residence time in our area. In fact, our upper air pattern flattens out by Wednesday and especially for Thanksgiving as the trough shifts east. Correspondingly, temperatures should moderate by Wednesday and could easily be in the 60s for Turkey Day. Once the warmth returns next week, I think we actually keep it around for several days as a ridge builds over the Southeast ahead of a trough over the Desert Southwest. Using the forecast trough/ridge pattern in Eastern Asia on Friday, I feel somewhat confident that a ridge sets up over the Southeast late next week and into the weekend. This should allow us to really warm up and for return flow to be established for a few days before the trough swings eastward. This could be setting the stage for a stormy end to the month or beginning to December.