Undoubtedly, if you have any interest in the broad weather pattern during the winter months, you’ve heard of the infamous “polar vortex” at some point or another. This holds special importance in my opinion given how critical the Bering Sea is for the stratosphere during the winter, thus making it a critical factor in the North American winter pattern as well. The presence of strong positive SST anomalies in the Bering Sea indicate a materially-increased chance of sudden stratospheric warmings this winter, which therefore increase the risk of severe outbreaks of cold air into the United States. Figure 28 shows a swath of well-above-normal SST anomalies in the Gulf of Alaska and northeast Pacific as a whole, an interesting development should it persist into the winter. For these last two areas of interest, we will make use of Figure 29, showing a zoomed-in view of SST anomalies that will better serve our analysis for the remainder of this section.

As mentioned at the start of this section, Figure 28 would be used for the first three areas of interest. So you have considered caravanning for the first time and don’t know where to start? For the time being, though, enhanced snowfall does appear possible for lake-effect snow regions this winter. This is most pertinent for lake-effect snow purposes, but may also dictate temperature trends to some degree for areas immediately downwind of the Lakes. Referring back to Figure 29, the crude temperature anomalies shown for the Great Lakes show essentially all of the Lakes as being above-normal in sea surface temperatures, an indication that enhanced lake-effect snowfall is possible for areas downwind this winter. Temperatures may also average warmer than normal for those areas, especially if the positive anomalies increase. In the aggregate, ocean-based oscillations appear to lean in favor of a cooler than normal winter for the majority of the country.

As discussed in the prior section for the Gulf of Alaska, warmer than normal SSTs tend to be associated with high pressure systems. Going along with this, the wide swath of above-normal water temperatures in the Gulf of Alaska seems to favor the development of high pressure systems more often than low pressure systems in that region. It is too early to pinpoint where the strongest below-normal anomalies will land, but I do feel comfortable forecasting a below-normal winter for temperatures at this point in time, based on what the Sea Surface Temperatures section has shown. I will touch on this topic again in the next iteration of this winter forecast, given its importance, and these anomalies will need to be watched to see if they do persist into the fall. For this piece, our attention will be given to the waters just east of the East Coast. To understand why this is such an important piece, we need to jump ahead a bit and glean some content from the Stratosphere section of this outlook.

Although the stratosphere does not have a number of influential oscillations like the world’s oceans have, the stratosphere remains an important feature to discuss in any winter outlook. However, like in the other oscillations reviewed thus far, the concept will become more simple after some explanation. However, with the exception of the PDO, it appears the majority of these key variables can be determined at this point. A potential exception is Lake Superior, where anomalies are zero to even slightly negative, but anomalies across all of these lakes could change substantially by the time winter actually rolls around. We can provide you a platform where you will have Jyotish Tantra and all Prediction and Solutions to solve your problems in a shorter time period without facing any kind of trouble. There is no doubt that a reputed company will try to keep your belongings safe but accidents can happen any time. Even if this doesn’t materialize, and we keep our attention only on the Gulf of Alaska, the strong positive SSTAs are supportive of a high pressure system over that area.