La Nina Spells La Wet/White for Travelers/Hunters

The storm track is alive and well this Thanksgiving week promising some major travel headaches across the USA and a wet time in the woods for buck hunters.

Take tonight when snow is blowing up a storm and closing schools in Seattle Washington and Portland Oregon (at sea level on the Pacific Ocean).

Contrast that with a front runner storm 2000 miles east of the ocean that is kicking up its heels with twisters and severe thunderstorms from Rush Street in Chicago south to the arch in St Louis.

It is all part of the developing La Nina Winter that we are entering.

Keep in mind when I refer to the La Nina storm pattern I am talking about an energetic storm track that enters the Pacific Northwest by way of the Alaskan-Aleutian passes of the distant North Pacific. As scientists, we have come to recognize the wet and wild hand of La Nina here in Appalachia.

This winter the emphasis will be on western systems to pound Oregon and Washington (wind, rain and snow) before burying the Rockies and spilling eastward onto the Plains. From there, in surprisingly still potent form, storm after storm will pass through our region. Many will bring wind and rain, like this week when we have a double header of near one inch rains on Tuesday and Thursday. Both rain days will be preceded by warm surges of air that will leave buck hunters wondering is this really November?

Colder air will arrive on Black Friday in time to generate snow flurries and showers with the mountains of West Virginia to pick up a few inches and make for a tracking snow at hunting lodges above 2500 feet elevation. That same snow pattern will make for a blustery and snowy Back Yard Brawl in Pittsburgh. So Mountaineer fans stay tuned!

Tuesday flight delays will concentrate close by to our region with Detroit International, Nashville, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh ground zero in the morning for low ceilings, strong cross winds and rainy skies. Throw Huntington’s Tri State and Charleston’s Yeager into the weather related delay mix!

Given the nature of the safety precautions being taken at airports across America (with the terrorism risk higher than normal), I would look for 1-2 hour delays to be routine in this zone thru Early afternoon on Tuesday.

By late day, the poor travel conditions will shift to the territory of the old Piedmont airlines from Atlanta’s Hartsfield to Charlotte’s Douglass International to BWI, the Washington airports (Reagan and Dulles) onto Philly and the New York airports (La Guardia, JFK and Newark).

Here’s your link to the FFA’s flight delay website.

http://www.fly.faa.gov/flyfaa/usmap.jsp

Wednesday will offer a respite from serious weather for our region and the Eastern seaboard as a new storm targets delays back to O’Hare and St Louis.

I will have more on Wednesday’s travel conditions with my next blog to be published Tuesday night.