La Nina & The Ice Bowl

As mentioned in a Long Range Discussion by the NWS Buffalo Forecast Office Sunday, we are now into a strengthened La Nina. That colder phase of sea surface temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific favors a dominantly strong Pacific flow into the western U.S. The current strength of La Nina is likely to produced a more dominant longer wave trough of low pressure over the interior of the western U.S. That, in turn, tends to pump up a ridge of high pressure over the SE, creating more of a SWly flow aloft over the plains, midwest, Great Lakes and NE. Under that kind of regime, lengthy arctic outbreaks in our part of the country become difficult to establish with so much of the lower 48 covered in airmasses of Pacific origin. We can get short outbreaks, as in the backlash behind Sunday's major storm system passing north of the Lakes, but Pacific air returns in fairly short over.

Between now and December 31, daytime high temperatures will run above freezing, and temperatures will average above normal. That doesn't mean the Ice Bowl in danger; nightime low temps should be cold enough for conditioning of the ice. There are early signs of a short and sharp cold outbreak around Jan 1-2. It's too early to tell if that outbreak will arrive to chill out the game and its fans, or wait until after the game.