Good News for Cold and Snow lovers? Talk of Greenland Block

   There has been some talk that a Greenland Block could start setting up very late this month. This talk has been from meteoroligists such as Joe Bastardi and Henry Margusity. I actually think this is more than a little "talk", and we could really have some blocking starting too setup very late this month. Some clues of a possible Greenland block would be what the GFS ensemble models are showing. They show that both the NAO and AO will both most likely be negative, by the end of the month. Last winter, both the NAO and AO were strongly negative at the same time. This caused lots of areas to have a very cold winter, with above average snowfall. A lot of records were set. For example, some areas that haven't had a white Christmas in over 50 years had a white Christmas last winter! Anyway, the NAO is expected to go negative around the 21st. This will only stay negative for a short amount of time, until around the 24th or 25th. Then it will go negative again around the 26th or 27th, and it looks to stay more negative this time. It will also drop more strongly negative, the mean of the models putting it between negative 1 and 2. Some models puts the NAO lower than negative 3! The AO goes negative within a few days. Most models keep it staying between negative 1 and two, but some models go even lower than that, one of them putting the AO even as low as negative 5 or 6!
   I think the best shot at snow will be early Febuary. The Old Farmers Almanac is saying this, and they are usually pretty accurate. Also, the new pattern will probably be more organized then. If this Greenland Block does setup, we will have more persistent periods of cold air. This pattern will be more favorable for snow. We will already have the first ingredient, cold air. Next, all we would need is a low to form. Just one good storm could bring a lot of areas near normal snowfaall.
   I also think early March could be a chance for snow too. A lot of years in the past, there have been a storm the first few days of March. We will have to keep a close eye on what happens this year.

AO Forecast

NAO Forecast