The Pacific is Up to “N”, More Snow in the Rockies?, Dr. Gray’s New Forecast

Tropical Storm Nora has formed in the Pacific Ocean. It is well away from any landmass, and will not affect the US, including Hawaii. Cold air, especially for this time of the year, is trapped in the Rocky Mountains. More snow is possible there.  Denver forecasters have the latest. Dr. Gray, the renowned hurricane forecaster, whose specialty has been forecasting long range hurricane outlooks, (producing a forecast in December for the following summer) is now forecasting just the next two weeks. Click Read More…

Philip Klotzbach and Dr. William Gray of Colorado State University are expecting below average tropical cyclone activity over the next 15 days. In their words, “The global models are generally pessimistic about the possibility of significant tropical cyclone development over the next several days.” They are also relating a new global weather pattern (like El Nino) to the development of hurricanes in the Atlantic. It’s called the Madden-Julian Oscillation, the MJO. (The formal name for El Nino is the El Nino-Southern Oscillation or ENSO.) The MJO is an area of either more or less tropical rainfall than normal. Periods of excess tropical rainfall can lead to more tropical storms or hurricanes.  Long story short, the average number of named storms for this time of year is 1.4. Dr. Gray predicts is will be at least 70% less than average, so that’s about 1 storm in the next 15 days. So far, it looks like we may not even see that.

-Dawn Brown