And just as the incredibly wet September October has played havoc with the harvest in the US the same sort of things going on in Eastern Europe and Russia with the much below normal temperatures and the excessively wet conditions. Not surprisingly western Europe has had a pretty tranquil October. We can see at this morning on the weather maps which showed a huge trough with eight in that it closed at low over St. Petersburg and a massive trough which extends from the 500 low into the Balkans covering all of the Ukraine Western Russia Belarus and the Baltic states. And in case you haven’t noticed 850 temperatures have been darn cold over this portion of Europe as well with -10c extending from the Karelian Peninsula into St. Petersburg.

Well looks like that’s about to change because a new surge of energy coming in from Iceland over the next several days will carve out a new trough but this will be over Western Europe which will expand in the Central Europe by the end of next week. The first surge of energy will drop all way into France and Italy which will develop a moderate area of low pressure over the central Mediterranean by 11/2… but this feature will quickly be absorbed by the larger trough that crashes into all of Western Europe by 11/6. In doing so the shift in long wave pattern means that the persistent deep trough over Eastern Europe/ the Ukraine / and Western Russia will finally be gone so temperatures will begin to warm significantly by the end next week.

Clearly the big news this morning… besides the impending Phillies Yankees World Series… is the rapid warming which is occurring across the ENSO regions . As you can see from this link the data shows that over the last two weeks ENSO 3.4 has warmed significantly … +0.4c and I am sure when the Australian data comes out Tuesday they will show even more warming. Region 4 is up to +1.4c.   http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/wksst.for

This is critically important because many of the seasonal forecasts which of them calling for a severely cold winter are based in part– but not solely– on the premise that the El Niño stays weak through the winter months. As you can see for MY winter forecast that was released last week…. I had a lot of problems with the certainty that the ENSO would stay weak through the winter months. That seemed to me to be a given which was not proven and was and remains the biggest risk factor as we approach the winter months. Off course of this warming could be just a temporary spike… but we know it’s not. I do have to confess to a certain amount of joy in witnessing the attempts to rationalize this warming … that it is insignificant and that the severely cold / snowy winter forecast for the Northeast US remains intact and nothing has changed. On some of the various weather board you would see comments that there has only been one or two cases of a weak El Nino and a -PDO…. so therefore things are looking perfect or a least a high probability that we would see such conditions as winter.

OOOOOPS!

The main issue this week will be the development of another major trough over the western US with the Canadian GFS and European models all developing a deep closed 500 low over the great basin and the Southwest on the 28th and 29th. The 500 low of course doesn’t stay there for a very long because of more energy coming in on the Pacific Jet — see for example the 96 hr 0z CMC 975 mb at slams into the Alaskan panhandle and British Columbia. The 0z GFS has this feature at 967 mb at 84 hrs!

These two S/Ws (short waves) actually end up in a significant Phase — a classic case of a split flow phase.. with the 0z GFS showing a monster Low at 120 hrs over the arrow head of Minnesota and western Lake superior at 968 mb while the European is a little less intense over Minnesota and the system really does not bomb out until it moves into western Ontario at 132 hrs at 972 mb.

To settle little bag but we’re still looking at a pretty active and powerful Pacific jet pattern which really begins to show up in the 11-15 day ensemble means. The 240 hr 0z GFS ensemble shows a pretty strong ridge in the middle Pacific and a deep trough along the Pacific Northwest …a +NAO and a SE ridge.

http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~gadomski/ENSHGTAVGNH_0z/f240.html
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~gadomski/ENSHGTAVGNH_0z/f300.html

The powerful Pacific Jet pattern continues right through 360 hours.
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~gadomski/ENSHGTAVGNH_0z/f300.html

　This is supported by the 6z GFS ensemble mean and as well as the European.
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~gadomski/ENSHGTAVGNH_6z/f300.html

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12Z  models