September 27, 2012: What’s Ahead?
For the third time this month, the overnight low dipped below freezing at the National Weather Service (NWS) site near Negaunee. This morning the low was 28 degrees. That’s the coldest so far this fall. Other lows included 28 at Seney, 27 at La Branche in northern Menominee County, 26 at Randville in Dickinson County, 24 at Champion, and 23 at Kenton. The coldest readings reported included 21 from an NWS Co-op observer near Watersmeet and from a weather watcher north of Ishpeming. As expected, it was much warmer along sections of the Lake Superior shoreline. Copper Harbor only dropped to 41 and it was a downright balmy 51 along the shoreline at Grand Marais.
The persistent pattern that has brought us our longest below average stretch in two years is in the process of relaxing. Temperatures will gradually warm. However, no strong, long-lasting warm up appears imminent. The pattern will try to amplify again this weekend with a piece of energy “closing off” just to our north and east (Image 1 above). That will lead to a northerly component to the wind for the balance of the weekend, which should keep temperatures in check.
It does look like a substantial warm up will begin to develop early next week (Image 2). But in the longer range, it appears that the upper-air trough will reload over the eastern North America later next week (Image 2). In fact, some of the forecast models have been developing some very cold air for this time of the year up in Canada. At this point, it looks like a much different autumn than last year. Recall that October 2011 started our extended above average streak that continued into early this month.
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