I Follow The Maps

California will miss this blast of cold, but just about everyone east of the Mississippi will feel it… in spades! It could be the coldest outbreak this winter.

gfs_namer_177_850_temp_mslp_precipAs a kid I loved maps. Even as an adult. For one pre-Internet birthday Helaine bought me a huge Rand McNally Atlas.

So detailed. So pretty. I spent hours staring at the world.

Today my job is all about the maps. A large portion of my day is spent staring at squiggly lines and hatched areas superimposed on maps by our weather models.

Stare over my shoulder, they look meaningless and abstract. To me the maps are telling a story. Sometimes the story is tough to find, but tonight everything is well defined.

The 850mb 0c line is the big deal. 850 mb corresponds to around 5,000 feet above sea level. I’m looking at the freeze line at 5,000 feet. It’s a good rain/snow indicator. When it plunges very far south it’s the sign of a major Arctic outbreak.

Next Thursday morning the 850 mb 0c line is just north of Lake Okeechobee in Florida. Yes, that’s REALLY far south.

California will miss this blast of cold, but just about everyone east of the Mississippi will feel it… in spades! It could be the coldest outbreak this winter.

It’s easy to just concentrate on my area of concern, but I always sneak a few peeks at the country as a whole. Yikes! It really is winter.

2 thoughts on “I Follow The Maps”

  1. it has been a very extreme pattern in the last few weeks.

    You guys out West have been 10 to 20 F above normal ….while the Midwest and upper East coast have been 10 to 15 below normal. The drought in CA is now the worst of record they say, while the snow up on Boston is nearing the greatest on record. Hopefully we can get back to a more normal pattern by early March, the 500 mb pattern looks to bring more of a ridge in the east and a building trough in the west.

    It will be interesting to see if the cold can make it way down to Florida, the low so far in Miami has been 52 F this winter -lol.

  2. Geoff:

    I just checked the NWS sites…south Florida is the only spot in the USA that has no had lows below 45 F this winter. San Diego fell to 34 F on January 4th, and LA fell to 37 on the same day.

    I don’t think Miami will go below 45 F, but it looks like places like Palm Beach might get below 45 F for a few hours next Thursday!

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