WASHINGTON — How much are you enjoying this taste of spring in November? Or would you rather keep your winter jackets on with cold air over us?
Well, this is the first time I can honestly say we can make everyone happy with the weather forecast.
For at least the next 10 days we’ll get a taste of both mild and cool air thanks to the remnants of an incredible storm that will form near the western coast of Alaska by Friday.
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NASA’s Aqua satellite captured a picture of Typhoon Nuri on Nov. 4 at 11:10 p.m. EST as clouds (newly developed thunderstorms) replace the original eye-wall. (NASA)
In the short term, expect rain to roll across the region Wednesday night continuing through the first part of Thursday as a cold front finally works its way through the region. Another cold front will swing through Thursday evening that could produce a few more isolated showers. But for the most part we will just be concerned with the winds and the cool air that follow on Thursday night.
By Friday, temperatures will only rise into the 50s for daytime highs after only topping out in the upper 60s/lower 70s for the last few days.
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The temperature forecast across the U.S. (WJLA)
We look to stay in the 50s before another warm up into the 60s by the middle of next week. Then expect another cool down by the end of next week. A roller coaster of temperatures if you will. And, of course, this sounds like something we speak of almost every single month, no matter the season. However, for this forecast, there is an interesting addition to the puzzle. That piece of the puzzle is about 805 miles south of Tokyo, Japan today.
Super Typhoon Nuri is one heck of a storm. This is one of the most impressive and powerful cyclones that has developed in the western Pacific in 2014. This storm reached the equivalent of a category 5 hurricane. Not only that, its winds continued at 180 mph for at least 24 hours with a minimum pressure recorded of 910mb!
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Stats on Typhoon Nuri as of 5 p.m. Wednesday.
Wednesday afternoon, Typhoon Nuri moved to the northeast at 12 mph. It weakened as it migrated to the east of Japan entering into an area with pretty high vertical wind shear, ripping it apart. It’s also moving into colder water, cutting off its moisture and supply feed. That being said, the remnants of Nuri will continue to move through open waters and toward the western coast of Alaska and the Bering Sea, intensifying again as it navigates to the north and east becoming a storm-force, cold core area of low pressure.
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The European Model shows the strong area of low pressure off the coast of Alaska with a forecast barometric pressure of 920mb. (Via Lauryn Rickets)
By the time it reaches the Bering Sea and western Alaska, the pressure is forecast to drop from about 970mb on Thursday night to between 918mb and 922mb on Friday night. The lower the pressure means the more intense the storm.
In fact, the lowest pressure storm (obviously we are not talking about a tropical storm here) observed in the Bering Sea was on Oct. 25, 1977 where a storm by the Dutch Harbor (the islands that roll southwest off the southern part of Alaska) dropped to 925mb in pressure. To give you a little comparison: the minimum barometric pressure of Hurricane Katrina’s second landfall was 920mb – – which is the third strongest to make landfall.
For all the weather nerds out there (I am obviously one so I welcome you with open arms): The extreme drop in pressure will be due to the very cold air at the surface interacting with the warm air from Nuri aloft. This will make for a fast-moving wind surrounded by slower moving air that will eventually create a bombing out or an extreme deepening of that low, dropping the pressure rapidly.
This is a powerful and impressive storm. We’re talking about hurricane force winds for Alaska on both Friday and Saturday as well as seas that could reach more than 45 feet with abundant precipitation. Good news is that this low will weaken steadily through the end of the weekend and the middle of next week as it drifts slowly to the east.
However, all this energy has to go somewhere.Generally when we see these types of situations, effects can go across portions of North America as that energy gets pulled into the North Pacific jet stream. All in all, as the storm moved through the open waters of the Pacific, on its way to Alaska, it was already doing its deed and amplifying the long-wave pattern downstream across North America.
What does that mean exactly?
Well, the remnants of Nuri will impact our weather forecast across the continental United States.
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As the remnants of Nuri affect Alaska, we cool down quite a bit on the eastern seaboard with heavy snow and much cooler temperatures expected in the northern plains. (NOAA)
Back on the east coast, we have a roller coaster of temperatures. While we’ve warmed up during the last few days with high pressure pumping in some nice southerly air, we’ll cool down as a front dives our way for Thursday. We look to stay cool through the weekend before yet another frontal system comes through Saturday into Sunday. Warming up into the middle of next week, we’ll cool down by week’s end.
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This images shows possible daytime high next Friday will be significantly cooler around the D.C. area. (NOAA)
While the changes seen in Washington, D.C. might be chalked up to “regular weather changes,” it is very interesting to think that everything is connected in the weather world. A storm in the western Pacific could eventually impact our weather no more than 10 days later.
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