Brendan Heberton

For many folks living across the northern High Plains, Intermountain West, and
across Colorado, the snow season is in full swing after last week's storm
blanketed the region in some cases upwards of a foot of snow. The image below
shows season to date snowfall, with most of Colorado having picked up so snow in
October, as well as a good helping of snow across Wyoming, Montana, and North
Dakota. 

The cold associated with this past weekend's snow storm has been impressive too.
Many record lows were set over the weekend, with numerous daily and monthly
record lows being set across the CONUS Tuesday morning: 

Precipitation anomalies for October featured some beneficial moisture for some
areas that needed it most – especially across central Texas. The Northern High
Plains continued to do quite well with positive precipitation anomalies across
much of Wyoming, Montana, the Dakotas, and Nebraska: 

November outlook
The fall is very often a dry period of much of our region. The recent snowstorm
was quite a welcome treat in that regard, perhaps fueled in part by the ongoing
El Niño. 

Model guidance isn't all that excited about moisture prospects in November, at
least not above average precipitation. For Eastern Colorado near-average
precipitation is forecast by the European ensemble mean, with a mix of wet and
dry across the plains states. The Pacific Northwest has some hope for above
average precipitation, but as you can see the CONUS on the whole doesn't look
terribly wet according to this particular model. 

If we look back at analog years, there are some similarities, but a few
differences: 

These maps are based off of Novembers in the past that have a similar PNA/NAO/AO
setup. Combining temperature and precipitation data from 1984, 2010, 1988, 1998,
1981 and 1983, we see a favorable pattern for wet along the west coast, some
indication of central plains moisture and a drier pattern over the east coast.
Warmer than normal temps control the plains and the deep south, with cooler than
normal bookending the coasts.

The EURO weekly ensemble charts show a similar set up in terms of moisture
across the US, perhaps showing some high favorability over the Great Lakes and
northeast. Our analogs differ a bit from the EURO which has a much different
temperature scheme over the southwest United States. It seems most everywhere
else has decent agreement so far with regard to moisture/temperature.

With the data we have now, temperatures are likely to be variable. We start the
month with a lot of cold across the eastern third of the country, with Ridging
trying to build back in across the west. This would indicate places like Denver
which recently saw heavy snow and cold will see a bit of thaw to start the
month. 

The ensmeble mean temperature outlook for Denver confirms this, with a clear
bias toward above average (red line) temperatures over the next 10 to 15 days
once we finally kick this cold on Thursday: 

And, the 8 - 14 day analog package from the CPC supports this idea too. Warm
west, cold east/southeast:

For the latter half of the month we see guidance try and flip this pattern,
however, with a bit more cold working its way into the west perhaps as we move
deeper into the month of November. This would force warming across the plains
and Great Lakes: 

I'm a bit skeptical we can maintain significant cold given the pattern, but it
does seem like there will be opportunities over the next month for at least some
brief shots of cold across the Front Range and adjacent plains. Teleconnections
just aren't all that supportive of prolonged cold, nor are model guidance or our
analogs, at least not until later in the month. We shall see.

Weather5280 Insider: November outlook features a mixed bag of warm and cold, bias toward below average precipitation