For the full report, CLICK HERE. The full report contains a 30 day forecast.
SUMMARY
To say that the overall pattern across North America has turned extreme would be an understatement. The current
pattern features a massive trough over the western third of the country and an equally strong massive ridge over the
eastern third of the country. As a result many areas over the Rockies and West Coast as well as the Pacific NW are
seeing Much Below normal temperatures while along eastern third of the country is seeing Much above normal temperatures. Over the next week the battle between these two features will produce significant rains that will run in
SW- NE direction (more less from the Delta into the Great Lakes region). Some of this rain will get into the eastern half of Texas and Oklahoma but these rains will not be significant. And the rains will certainly NOT reach western and northern TX, western OK and central / western KS. The operational or regular GFS models on early Tuesday morning and the 6z runs did show significant rains over most of the Plains as well as the Delta and significant portions of the Midwest (mostly over the WCB). However the European and GFS ensembles are significantly drier and don’t support this sort of really wet extended forecast. In addition the European weeklies and the new CFS model which last week showed areas of moderate or near normal rainfall over the Midwest and the lower Plains are somewhat drier. The MJO moving into phase 8 means DRY for all the Plains and the Midwest but there is some moisture for western KD, OK, TX if the MJO can hold together and make it into Phase 1 and Phase 2 in early March.