The latest 30 day outlooks were issued yesterday, and not surprisingly, EC has done a complete 180 in its December outlook. The forecast now calls for above normal temperatures for much of the country, a complete reversal from its below normal outlook issued two weeks ago (see Robs blog entry from Dec 4) This outlook is now consistent with CPC's December outlook from the U.S. which had been calling for above normal temperatures over the Prairies this month, and maintains this outlook in its latest update. And judging by the way the weather pattern has been this past week, and the week ahead.. it appears that the above normal forecast is going to work out.It appears that EC's 30 day outlooks are heavily influenced by current weather patterns (i.e. persistence). Note that EC's below normal outlook two weeks ago was issued during a period of below normal temperatures across the Prairies. Now that's its mild everywhere, the outlook is above normal. It'll be interesting to see if this correlation holds for January's outlook in two weeks. (30 day outlooks are updated every two weeks)
I 'like' those 3 tiny pockets of above normal in the high Arctic where EC (nor anybody for that matter) has weather observing stations! Computer models, ... the boundaries on the areas are always interesting. It'd be interesting to see how well they mesh with the US models. Chris in Westwood.
ReplyDeleteGood observation Chris. In my opinion, those little warm or cold pockets should never be left on the final map. It's a 30 day outlook! How can you can possibly imply precision to that scale?? A good map smoothing algorithm would take care of those little "noise" areas and eliminate them or smooth them out into a more general field. The outlooks from CPC are much better in that regard since they have much smoother and more realistic looking maps based on large scale flow patterns rather than just automated computer output.
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