You won’t be happy if you’re waiting for a flip-flop in non-winter weather patterns. If you enjoy Michigan’s winters, the long-term weather pattern should work in your favor.
By long-range I’m discussing the last two weeks of January. Long-term weather data show that the last two weeks of January are the coldest of the winter.
So it should be relatively simple for the natural weather pattern to bring Michigan some genuine winter cold and wintry precipitation in the last two weeks of winter. It hasn’t felt like recent Januarys have lived up to Michigan’s harsh winter reputation.
Let’s take a look at the most reliable forecast model data to see if winter has truly arrived. I like showing you simple colors that tell a story. Do we see blues and purples on weather maps alternate with oranges and reds? No, we do not.
Here’s the most reliable way to predict the next few weeks and whether a weather shift will bring warmer, wimpier winter weather. I’ll show you the wind flow at about 15,000 feet, in the middle of the atmosphere.
We currently have a nearly stationary storm system over the northeast United States and southeast Canada. We have a warm high pressure ridge aloft over the west coast.
The combination of these two weather features creates a strong northwest wind flow across Michigan and the Great Lakes region. The northwest wind flow brings very typical wintry temperatures of zero to twenty degrees into our area.
The above forecast extends to January 22nd. It depicts a persistent upper-level storm system rotating from the Northeast to central Canada, then spinning back to the south into Michigan next week. As next week’s cold moves to the northeast, the next lobe of cold forms to our north.
When we end the forecast on January 22, it appears that another blob of cold will move south out of Canada. Of course, this is how most of us envision the progression of winter.
It simply hasn’t been this way in recent winters. In recent winters, we’ve experienced a week or two of moderate cold followed by a few weeks of extremely mild weather.
The surface temperature anomaly is another excellent tool for forecasting long-term weather for the next few weeks. This means examining how far warm or cold the temperatures will deviate from the average. Of course, we could have normal temperatures, which are in the wintry 20s and 30s in late January.
We are currently experiencing cold weather in Michigan. We also anticipate a few days when temperatures may exceed normal by a few degrees, raising southern Michigan to 35 degrees.
We see the end of the forecast with a large area of colder-than-normal weather covering much of the United States. It’s easy to imagine the large blob of cold to our west making its way into Michigan as January comes to a close.
Have I convinced you to prepare your mind and your sidewalk for more winter weather? Some of you must shield your minds from winter’s dread. Some of you need to get ready for Michigan’s winter fun.
