Severe Weather Verification... Winter Coming back to East?

Unfortunately last night turned out to be a deadly one in Oklahoma, with at least 8 people killed by a tornado (I have heard maybe up to 15?) and many more injured. As far as yesterday's post and the area highlighted as the area under highest threat, it turned out okay... not stellar, but decent. I liked eastern half of Oklahoma and far Northeast Texas as far as greatest threat for tornadoes. There were only a handful of reports, shown by the map below, and it wound up basically right in the middle of Oklahoma with one in far north Texas.













Still have thunderstorm activity in the Ohio / Tennessee Valleys today, as well as into parts of the South, but the severe weather threat not as high as yesterday, certainly not as far as tornadoes, though it will be very windy even once the cold front associated with this system moves through later this evening.

This is a pretty exciting weather pattern though for weather geeks like myself... lots of storms to track from the West Coast all the way across the nation in the next week or two. The warmer pattern is about done (except for those of us in Texas, but meh, I'm fine with that). Winter weather lovers in the eastern U.S. may be able to rejoice next week and / or the week after by getting some snow out of the deal. Of course, most people would enjoy the big storm more than some nickel-and-dimers, and that isn't out of the question starting mid to late next week. To get a bigger storm to form, the jet stream across the north needs to slow down enough to allow for more amplification, and there are some signs that this may occur as the global atmospheric circulations slow in response to a recent stratospheric warming event as well as shifts in thunderstorm patterns out in the tropical Pacific Ocean (everything in weather is connected in one way or another). Some of the computer models we look at have shown quite a storm in the Mid-Atlantic late next week, and while it isn't uncommon to see computer models blow up storms way too much and too often, this pattern is a favorable one for above normal snows in many areas of the eastern U.S, whether with a "big one" or by multiple smaller storms. It's not a guarantee by any means, but at least suggests a higher than normal chance, which is all winter weather lovers can ask for at this point.

Tomorrow perhaps we can hone in on what areas are the ones to watch the most next week, tough as that may be from several days out!