By Chris Gilberti | November 7, 2022
8-14 day departure from normal temperature forecast.
Photo Credit: NOAA Climate Prediction Center
Record breaking temperatures have occurred for much of the East Coast and in New York State this past weekend, with highs reaching up to and over 75 degrees in some places. This fall-time warmth will be coming to an end though this week, as a strong cold front will bring us back to near seasonal temperatures.
A strong high-pressure ridge has set up over the northeast US the past few days, allowing for calm, dry, and warm conditions with winds feeding warm air from the deep south all the way north to New York. Normal high temperatures in Albany for early November range in the low-mid fifties, so the mid seventies experienced this weekend were well-above what we expect.
Even the low temperatures in some regions on Saturday night were multiple degrees higher than the average high temperatures. Given the time of year though, patterns like this can be more common, as warm air in the south starts to “fight” with cooler air trying to make its way south from the North Pole. Thus, when this warmer weather moves out of the region, we can expect a big change in temperatures.
As a result of the big temperature difference with warm air to the south and east and cooler air pushing in from the north, there was a quite large severe weather event in the Mid-South over the weekend – with large thunderstorms and deadly tornadoes. With places like East Texas and Oklahoma being so close to the Gulf of Mexico, there was a big source for warm, moist air to cause instability along this front. Thankfully, we do not have that here in the northeast, so this cold front should just be associated with much cooler temperatures and maybe a few cold rain showers.
Many may wonder: will this cold front finally be the start of more permanent cold temperatures and the ushering in of winter? Well, considering the ups and downs there have been so far this fall, it wouldn’t be at all surprising if we went through a few more weeks of this seasonal rollercoaster. Though it is likely that the later in the season it gets, the cold days will get cooler, and the warm days will be slightly cooler as well. The new air mass that will be settling in behind the cold front this week looks to be strong enough that it can bring nighttime temperatures below freezing more regularly, so perhaps in the coming weeks the word “snow” will start to enter our vocabulary, though it does not look like we will be watching for any big snowstorms or Nor’easters quite yet.