Feast or Famine

What is normal? What is average? This week has been an extremely warm week. I can't believe waking up with temps still in the 60's, but things will be changing soon. As a professor of mine always said, the weather pattern is usually feast or famine. We are either really cold or really warm. Once again, what is normal? The next few days we will see our temps climbing into the upper 70's, but Sunday will deliver a cold weather changer into South Miss. By the way, Sunday is the first day of winter. Bottomline, Monday will be cold. Several things tell me we will be flipping into a cool weather pattern. An ensemble forecast of the Artic Oscillation shows a slight negative trend, which will allow Colder air to pull into the Eastern Corridor of the U.S., and the North Atlantic Oscillation is forecast to go negative to lock in the cold air. Also, most long range models indicate a Ridge/Trough pattern (this refers to the Eastern side of the U.S. in a trough, which allows cold air to filter down from Canada). This pattern will be different from our week-long Trough in the West and Ridge in the Southeast that we experienced this week. Although, next week we might see a couple shots of cold air throughout the time period. I mean we will see a strong cold front on Sunday, and we could also see another cold front mid-week. This means we will warm a tad inbetween cold fronts. What is expected for Christmas? A forecast for 8 days out is still very tough to make. My best thoughts right now are based on the long-range GFS and Canadian models. Precip on Christmas Eve but clearing out on Christmas Day. Temps look to be on the cool side. -Tanner Cade