The Rise Of The Glob

In my recent winter weather outlook, I talked about the rapid demise of the “Blob” of warm water in the Northeast Pacific due to a persistent parade of storms over the area.

But with the Blob’s downfall rose a new feature – a huge area of below-normal SSTs throughout the Northern Pacific. Take a look.

On October 30th, there are slightly warmer than normal temperatures in the Gulf of Alaska, but nothing strong enough to be called “Blob.”

But on November 12th, there’s a huge swath of below-normal SSTs over the Northern Pacific. The Glob.

Why the sudden decrease in SST? The answer: A large trough over Northern Pacific (as shown by the purple area in the graphic below). This causes mixing at the surface, allowing the relatively mild surface waters of the northern Pacific to mix with cooler waters at depth. Additionally, we currently have -40 degree air spilling over the North Pacific from Siberia, and that is helping cool things off even more.

To see how far we’ve come, take a look at the Blob at the beginning of September.

Coupled with the other “blob” of warm water off the Japan, the tiny cool pool by the date line, and the warm swath north of the equator, this SST anomaly distribution resembles a face! And sure enough, where there were Blobs, there was high pressure.

Since the Glob burst on to the scene, global average SST anomalies have dropped precipitiously.

The Glob is good for skiers because it keeps westerly flow into our area cooler-than-normal. We’ll see if it holds, or if water temperatures moderate back to normal as the season goes on.

Regardless, snow is on the horizon for the Cascades. Here’s the forecast snowfall for the next 72 hours as shown by the latest UW WRF model. Looking good!

Have a nice day,
Charlie