Long Range Look

With beautiful weather going on currently, I want to take a look at what's going on in the long range. Currently the GFS and ECMWF show a weak but large system moving into the southern Great Lakes region by Wednesday afternoon, with light rain and cooler temperatures. Rainfall amounts will most likely stay below 1/2", with higher amounts possible in Southern Ontario. Most of the rain should be out of  Ohio/Michigan by Friday afternoon, while rain lasts until Friday night in Ontario, especially futher north towards Toronto. This low pressure system will also bring some cooler temperatures to the region, with temperatures staying below the low 60s (below 17C).

These cool temperatures look to persist during the rest of the weekend into next week. According to the models, this isn't the big story.

The big system to watch would be about 8 days from now (Monday-Tuesday timeframe). Both the ECMWF and GFS show a strong system developing in the Ohio Valley and tracking just east of Toronto. Below are a few images from the GFS:

Now, this is what you would expect to be a classic snowstorm for most of northern Ohio, eastern Michigan, and southern Ontario. Unfortunately for snow lovers, this is still October. But to see a storm like this early in the season is fairly promising. What's interesting is that if you were to only look at 850mb Temps/Precip/SLP, you would expect this to be a snowstorm. 850mb temperatures are below freezing, but the surface is well too warm for snow. If this continutes to be shown on the models, then expect a cold rain and a lot of rain, but just like the winter season, storms in this range are fairly unpredictable. It's always a cool sight to see this early in the season, but it won't be a snowmaker here. This is just the first of many storms to watch this fall and into the winter.

Even if this storm does not end up nearly as strong as models are currently showing, the telleconnections support at least a quick period of below average temperatures with the deep trough coming out of Canada. I like the idea of a brief spell of below average temperatures to end the month, although I believe it will warm back up starting November.