Looking ahead to winter's second half

It has been a cold winter to say the least, but for snow lovers, we have wasted a lot of the cold. Old Man Winter has eased up on the gas in terms of the cold, but there are indications that the pedal will be put to the metal and the hammer will once again come down as we close out February and head into March.

After a big winter two years ago, the last two (so far) have been pretty quiet in the snowfall department. With the recent warm-up, the area has seen two mixed precipitation events with much of that moisture falling as liquid rain. If all of that was snow, we would be talking 15-18 inches over the last ten days. (Assuming a 10:1 snow to rain ratio)

All hypotheticals aside, the place to be for the bigger snows over the past two seasons has been Danville. Danville has been the only location that has seen way over their average snowfall. In the Star City, things have been much different. 

So what's to come?

If you like cold and snow, you may be in luck. There are indications that an extended period of Arctic cold could be on the way for the eastern part of the United States. 

Driving Force: 

You may have heard of the Polar Vortex before mentioned in the news. A lot of times it talked about scientifically incorrect, but it is a thing. It hangs out in the stratosphere, us humans live in the troposphere, and resides over the coldest part of the poles. Every now and then, pieces of the vortex weaken and break apart sending Arctic to cold into the lower-48. That could happen heading into March.

One of the ways we keep tabs on the Polar Vortex is the Arctic Oscillation (AO). When it goes into its negative phase, the stratosphere warms at the poles, the Polar Vortex weakens and the eastern third of the United States typically sees colder weather as a result. A strong Polar Vortex keeps the Arctic cold locked in over the Arctic.

Over the next ten days give or take, the bottom is expected to fall out of the AO, meaning that another round of Arctic cold could be on the way. 

AO PIC

One of the indications of this is a Sudden Stratospheric Warming (SSW) event. That's a mouthful, but basically the stratosphere warms up significantly and goes hand with the breaking down of the Polar Vortex.

When this SSW event occurs, cold spills over the polar regions into the mid-latitudes, where we leave either over Europe or the United States. The jury is still out over whether it will be the United States or Europe that gets the brunt of Arctic's wrath, but either way it's looking like our friend Punxy Phil may be on to something. (The groundhog is predicting six more weeks of winter, but I would bet he knows nothing about the Arctic Oscillation,)