The Loooong Ranger: October 7 - November 3

Hope everyone had a good weekend.  This morning before going in to work I took a few minutes to look over the latest run of the experimental loooooooong range European computer forecast model.  This model looks out over the next 720 hours or approximately 30 days.

Here are a few observations from last week's run.

• West coast storm develops October 9.
• Midwest warm-up (Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky) October 11-15.
• Shot of cold air coming down from Canada into Great Lakes (Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio) October 20-23.
• Western U.S. ridge develops October 20-23.  Should lead to above normal temperatures.
• Shot of cold air from Canada:
• Northwest United States November 2.
• Colorado November 3.
• Central Plains November 3-4.

The model suggests several smaller scale storms moving through at a quick rate over the next month.  Small enough not to mention details as it is important to look at the overall pattern when looking at long range data.

Keep in mind, the model is just that.  A computer model.  The farther out the model looks, the higher the error rate.  The key to looking at this kind of data is to not look at specifics but instead trends and long wave patterns.