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Some Light Snow This Weekend. A Look at February!

Jan 27, 2012; 9:36 AM ET

Disco

This winter has become very frustrating to me and probably a lot of weather weenies out there as well. The NAO, which is a measure of blocking, continues to stay on the positive side which means the cold will not stay nor will we see the big storms along the East coast. However, I am not backing off on my mid-February big storm.

The La Nina is weakening but seems to want to bounce around a bit. Over the past week, we have seen the water temps cool again which corresponds to the SOI values going up again. I do think we should see the La Nina fade away this spring and perhaps even go to the El Nino by next fall.

So while the pattern seems to have changed some over the past two weeks, we still have bouts of warmth to contend with. The leads to another problem, and that's the severe weather potential for this spring. We are already having the third highest month for tornadoes, and if that trend continues, we may have another big year for tornadoes across the Plains and Southeast. The Gulf of Mexico remains on the warm side because the ultra cold air has not been flowing over the Gulf of Mexico to cool it. It's amazing to see how warm the Gulf of Mexico is for this time of the year. That warmth sitting there is just fuel for the fire of severe storms during the rest of the winter into the spring. Not want we want to hear given what happened last year.

I still think February will be a stormy month with snow and severe weather potential with every storm. If the La Nina continues to bounce, the southern stream of the jet will become even more active leading to more severe weather and potential for tornadoes.

If we can just get a week of blocking, that will lead to some big snowstorms in the East. That, to me, is the most critical part of the February pattern.

The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of AccuWeather, Inc. or AccuWeather.com

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Henry Margusity
AccuWeather.com severe weather expert, Henry Margusity, offers the Meteorological Madness blog including detailed analysis of severe weather across the US.

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