GaWx

What’s your definition of “winter is over”? I’m going to enjoy the next 7 days of no torch with ups and downs, low dewpoints, and the progged highest temp of only ~69. The period should avg a bit BN and this should mean great walking wx. Afterward, I’m hoping any possible torch (say upper 70s to low 80s) is fairly tame and shortlived. Hopefully there’d still be lots of lows down in the 40s. Looking further ahead: although the Euro Weeklies maintain a -PNA and don’t have a -NAO/-AO, they cool it off to NN last week of Feb. Winter’s always my favorite season even if not cold, mainly because I enjoy the lack of bugs and humidity as well as the big swings that other seasons typically don’t have.

You’re right that I was thinking more from a E US and moreso from a SE US perspective and should have stated that. My bad. I just edited the post. See if you agree more with the new wording. For Michigan and all of the E US, it looks mild through ~Feb 20th. After that, when model skill is very low, it’s much more up in the air.

Today’s Euro Weeklies are again pretty ugly looking from an E US and especially SE US perspective with a -PNA/BN H5 in SW Canada dominating the weeks after Feb 10th. Also, the -AO and -NAO essentially go away. This -PNA would be a sharp reversal to the opposite of the prior 4 week long beautiful (for the E US) +PNA dominated pattern, which I’ll be able to enjoy for another week. Hoping this -PNA doesn’t last too long and that the model is wrong on it lasting for weeks. *Edited

The Jan ‘26 30 mb QBO came in at -25.51, Jan’s 2nd lowest on record to only 2015’s -26.7: https://psl.noaa.gov/data/correlation/qbo.data Based on the patterns since 1948, there’s a very high chance (I’d say 95%) that it will be positive by next winter, and there’s a better than even chance for the next +QBO period to start by late summer.

12Z Euro: looks good in the Triad

Thanks, Chris! 1. Indeed, it’s been such a warm DJ in the W 1/2! Thus, geographically as you showed, that makes it 7th warmest for the contiguous US going back 131 years. 2. But based strictly on population weighting or gas heating weighting, which are great measures of energy usage for heating, I’m sure you know it hasn’t been warm at all as it has been ~1F BN in the lower 48 thanks to the heavy pop. weighting of the E Midwest/Great Lakes to Mid-Atlantic/NE’s ~5BN easily outweighing the much more sparsely populated W 1/3 of the US’ ~6 AN. https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/cdus/degree_days/hfstwpws.txt 3. Related to projected upcoming energy usage: yesterday’s natural gas price plunged an historic 25.7%, by far the most in one day since it started trading in 1990!! This was mainly due to the much warmer models in the E US yesterday going out ~3 weeks vs how they looked on Friday, the prior trading day. Was it way overdone in relation to progged demand drop? Of course it was! Here are the largest NG drops in one trading day since 1990: -25.7% 2/2/2026 -19.1% 3/18/2004 -17.5% 11/15/2018 -17.0% 6/30/2022 -16.7% 6/14/2022

0Z Euro targets RDU with a nice hit:

The major indices on 1/31/26, the day of the majority of the storm, were near ideal overall: - strong +PNA: +1.4 - strong -AO: -2.9 - weak -NAO: -0.5 - moderate -EPO: -1.0 - moderate -WPO: -0.7 - MJO: moderate phase 7 (I had thought it would be phase 8)

Natural Gas Prices Plummet as Weather Looks Warmer Updated Feb. 2, 2026 at 3:07 pm ET 1502 ET – Natural gas futures drop 26%, the largest one-day percentage decline since 1995, on warmer weather forecasts and expectations of inventory buildup. “Did the data trend warm enough to justify a more than $1 plunge? Of course not,” NatGasWeather.com says in a note, adding that natural gas price moves “often overshoot.” The Eastern half of the U.S. is expected to warm “well above normal,” the forecaster says, while production recovers after freeze-offs last week. The most-active contract closes at $3.237/mmBtu. ([email protected]; @ptrevisani) https://www.wsj.com/articles/natural-gas-prices-pull-back-after-weather-driven-rally-4f77624d?

Don, Do you mean the WxBell 850 mb maps? What daily data are you referring to? Be careful with their 2m temp maps because I’ve been saying they’re colder than ECMWF’s in house data.

Today’s Euro Weeklies are if anything even worse than yesterday’s if you want a cold pattern in the E US. Also, the 10 mb has pulled up somewhat on the mid Feb reversal chance. Cue the folks that say the EW shouldn’t run daily lol, which is irrelevant unless you’d prefer to keep your head in the sand:

I think that’s March.

Natgas’ plunge today is even more historic with it down an unbelievable >26% now!! @Stormchaserchuck1

WxBell (Bastardi) also predicted a BN E US in Jan.

KSAV had 19 for yesterday’s low, which was a new record, beating the old record of 23. This ties with the 19s in Dec ‘22, Jan ‘18, and Jan ‘14 for the coldest since Jan ‘11’s 18. To put this into even better perspective, the coldest there since 1990 is only a little lower, 17! The last Feb with it this cold was 1996. Only 8 other Febs since 1874 have had a low colder than 19 meaning this is ~95 percentile for a coldest Feb low! Today’s low there was 23. @buckeyefan1please pin this. Thanks!

The CLT low was 10F as of 7:15AM. So unlikely it made it to 9F though not impossible since that’s still a little before sunrise. The 10F was enough to tie the record for the day.

12Z Euro

Hey Tim, Thanks for asking. Yes I did and it was a very nice hit of 0.75” (most winters have none). For more details if interested:

This is the SE and to me the threat of a large area of 1”+ outside the mountains is significant though it’s not currently a threat of something “major”. How many of these occur each winter on average? Not many. And it has the chance to be rather impactful. That fits my definition of “significant”. It doesn’t matter that it doesn’t have near the potential of the historic storm of this past weekend and also probably not the potential of the prior storm. In addition, this one isn’t threatening nearly as large an area (nowhere near me, for example). But it still could be significant wherever it hits if and when it does.

Thread started:

Well, what do you know?! The model consensus is increasingly honing in on the threat of a significant snowstorm for Feb 4-5th. As of now, this threat is by far the highest in VA and NC. No rest for the weary! @buckeyefan1please pin this. Thank you.

New thread time for upcoming threat? It’s already beginning to dominate this thread, it isn’t far off, and why not bet the streak as every other threat so far has ended up verifying?

What’s your feeling about Feb temp anomalies in the E US? BN, NN, or AN? The first week is cold. There’s no getting by that. So, BN will have a great headstart regardless of the duration and intensity of the expected subsequent warmup. About all indices point to a significant pattern change (warmer) during week 2 as of now. So, it’s seemingly inevitable. But how mild and for how long. NG market is worried it could be quite significant as it is now at a session low of an amazing -18%! edit 8:28AM: I can’t even recall the last day NG dropped as much. I think it has and probably more but I don’t know when off the top of my head. I’ll try to find out. Of course, it remains to be seen how low it will be when it closes for the session as there could always be an intra session deadcat bounce. Meanwhile, evidently Phil saw his shadow meaning 6 more weeks of winter. But even that couldn’t give NG a bounce lol.

WxBell is cold in the E in general and downright very cold in the NE for Feb. Eric Webb has also had cold E US thoughts for quite awhile though I haven’t seen an actual Feb map from him. Any opinions?

Those who are sick of the cold E US pattern and thus want it to end ASAP and stay away (definitely not me) must love the much warmer E US vs how it looked late last week on the models for mid-Feb. Due to much warmer models for the E US weeks 2-3 vs how they looked Friday, natural gas opened as sharply down as I can ever recall it doing (-15%!). I hope BAM isn’t too upset lol. When you realize how much warmer the EPS is vs Fri, you’d realize one of the reasons: Fri 12Z EPS HDD (lower left purple): week 2 gradually warmed only to normal HDD Today’s 12Z EPS HDD (lower left purple): week 2 now plunges to significantly below normal HDD/warmer than normal causing the HDD for Feb 8-13 to drop sharply from 148 to 124. In addition, today’s Euro Weeklies for week 3 (2/16-22) are significantly warmer in the E US vs Fri’s run: Friday (1/30/26) Euro Weeklies temps for 2/16-22: Today’s (2/1/26) Euro Weeklies temps for 2/16-22: