Hello LRC Weather Bloggers,

The west coast is now getting hit by a series of storm systems, as expected and right on schedule according to this year's LRC.  A powerful jet stream is forecast to blast on shore during the middle of this week. Take a look at the forecast jet stream:

As this jet stream energy blasts in a possible record breaking low pressure area is forecast to form at the surface.  Take a look at today's 60 hour NAM forecast for Thursday Evening, January 21, 2010:

Now, what is going to happen next.  We predicted this storm would happen weeks ago around January 24th.  This is the part of the pattern that formed a strong upper low in the middle part of the nation back in November.  Is it any shock that it is happening again, but there are always seasonal differences and many other things to consider when trying to forecast the weather based on the LRC.  I won't go into too many of the details, but we have learned a lot more this year and I will be working on a presentation and paper on this years weather pattern once it settles down months from now.

Take a look at what happend in November (the maps on the left), and compare it to what is forecast to happen this weekend (the maps on the right). We are in around a 60 to 62 day cycle and it has been quite consistent thus far:

And, now, take a look at what happened next in November, and what is forecast to happen early next week. 

The jet stream is much stronger in January than it is in November. There are seasonal differences that show up, but if you really follow the sequence of maps from days and weeks before November 23rd and the days and weeks afterwards, and then compare that to what is going now there is no denying that this is just the same pattern cycling. We are going into the third cycle of this year's LRC.  It is so ridiculously complex. And, then throw in the cycling Arctic Oscillation, El Nino, the NAO, PNA, and other influences on this pattern and making a forecast is quite difficult.  But, we are being very successful this season in forecasting weeks and now months ahead of time.  I will be spending the weekend working on a presentation that I plan on presenting at the Broadcast Conference of the American Meteorological Society this summer.  Have a great week and we will update this blog later on. In the mean time go to www.NBCActionNews.com and click on the Action Weather Blog for more details.

Gary