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Weekend Forecast – Modoki El Nino

Posted on by MichaelV (Otsego)

Well, WOODTV has put their winter forecast out there, so, we shall see how that pans out.  Long range CFSv2 models have been trending to much colder than normal temps in the teens and 20s towards the end of the month and the lakeshore counties could start to take a beating.  Of course as I have stated many times these are guesses, however it may be a good time to get the snowblowers tuned up and the snow shovels out just in case.  This is the time of year when we could get the sloppy wet snow with ice mixed in.  Long range (30 day) models have been pointing to cold air coming in this month consistently over the past couple weeks.

I am thinking this year instead of putting out a winter forecast I will write up current global conditions every Thursday and how they will affect the weather over a two week period similar to what I wrote yesterday.

Matt Kirkwood spoke of the Modoki El Niño.  This is a recent term first named by Professor Jamagata of JAMSTEC (The Japanese Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology).

The El Niño Modoki phenomenon is characterized by the anomalously warm central equatorial Pacific flanked by anomalously cool regions in both west and east. Such zonal SST gradients result in anomalous two-cell Walker Circulation (air flow over the tropics) in the tropical Pacific, with a wet region in the central Pacific.  This creates colder than normal conditions over the eastern 2/3 of the U.S. and warmer than normal for the Rockies westward 65% of the time (since records have been kept.)  This would also mean near normal precipitation for most of the U.S. and dryer than normal for the western states.  Keep in mind this doesn’t figure in storms or Lake Effect snows.

 

Surface Temps
El Niño Modoki Skin Temperature
Rainfall during El Niño Modoki
El Niño Modoki Rainfall

Hope this helps explains what Matt was talking about.  We try to make this an educational site to make the weather and climatology more understanding.  This could be an interesting winter if it all plays out.  We haven’t had a total cold and snowy winter in several years.

Our first snow is predicted for mid to late next week which I would say would be the wet nasty style mixed with rain.  Hopefully we can get the rest of the leaves off the trees by then or we could see some tree damage and power lines going down which we saw in October of 1997.

Below is the October climate summary from the NWS which is self explanatory:

We should see a lot of clouds for today, however Saturday it will clear out enough to bring the sun into the picture which we don’t see a lot of in November, so enjoy it while we have it.  A few showers will pass through Saturday night into Sunday and another system will be coming through Monday night through Wednesday.  That system could bring some thunderstorms and windy conditions.  I will write more on this system on Sunday.  Temps over the weekend will range from the upper 40s to low 50s.  Lows will be around freezing tonight then the upper 30s to mid 40s over the weekend.

Sparty plays Maryland and the Wolverines will play Penn State in the Big House tomorrow.  I will not even mention the “L” word for the game on Sunday.

 

Category: Michigan Weather Forecast

14 thoughts on “Weekend Forecast – Modoki El Nino”

  2. Does it look like Sunday is going to be a wash out? If you were planning to do something outside would you choose tomorrow or Sunday? I thought they were saying rain more late Sunday.

    1. I would do it on Saturday. Look at the weather report in the morning. Earlier I saw that Saturday was going to be decent even if cool. I am hoping to do a short color tour on the back roads & get some photos.

  3. Winter coats for 6-7 months, dangerous cold, deadly roads, constant wind, snow…not news when already known.

  4. Looking for a below normal start to November not seeing any real warm weather the next 2 weeks or so, snow chances are looking good by the end of the week! Best weather times of year is near have a great weekend Go Blue! Go Snow ! INDYDOG14!!

  5. The sun is shining here and the colors are looking really pretty!! A bit chilly out there this morning.

    1. I don’t know about other areas but here in my area while the trees changed late I think the color this fall is some of the best it has been in many years.
      Slim

      1. The colors have popped…yellow seems to very bright, but against these gray clouds they seem brighter. LOL!!!

  6. Cloudy and now down to 36° here. In my post for tomorrow I will mention that in past weak El Ninos of the 10 known weak El Nino events since 1950 Grand Rapids has had above average snow fall in 8 of the 10 Novembers. So my guess is that we have a good chance of seeing snow this month. As for the winter guess well as the old saying goes your guess is as good as mine. In other words I do not put a lot of stock into any ones long range guess. The one from WOOD TV is for cold and snow. WWMT while not giving a winter outlook (they must have did bad last year) anyway the other day WWMT was guessing a milder winter with around 60 to 65″ of snow for Kalamazoo. As MV stated some of the long range models are now pointing to a colder November. We shall see.
    Slim

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