Pattern Change Coming

The pattern change is finally here!  I know that the majority of you have been waiting for this to happen, and it finally appears to be happening.  Let's get started!  Here is the stratospheric temperature at 10 millibars:

We can see that the stratosphere has warmed quite a lot over the past few days!  This is usually a good sign during the winter that the pattern will change!  Let's hope it comes through, because we have a lot of catching up to do!  Next we're going to look at the teleconnections.  First up we have the Pacific North American Pattern, or PNA for short:

We can see in the above image that the PNA is expected to stay at about neutral, if not slightly negative.  When you get a negative version of the PNA, a trough develops out west, with a ridge in the east.  If you are looking at a positive PNA, just flip the previous sentence.  Most people in the east prefer a positive version of this pattern, as it gives the east coast cold and snow.  However, a negative PNA is still serviceable.  Here is the NAO:

We can see that the NAO is forecasted to remain at neutral.  This doesn't really favor anyone in the country for cold and snow.  When we take all of these into account, I think we will get something like this:

It looks like that with a negative PNA and a negative Arctic Oscillation, we will get a trough in the west, but frequent cold shots hitting the east as well.  With this colder pattern, the blue area on this map will finally start seeing significant winter storms.  Stay tuned!