Polar Surge Heading for the Region Impressive for November Standards!

I will say; it's been awhile since I've seen the likes of the upcoming cold projected by our models for November (both in intensity and extent) for several days now. First of all, "some 3 - 4 standard deviations below normal" when speaking of the depth of the trough - from WPC. Then today again from WPC - "Well-advertized cold snap will lead the medium range period next week (week coming up) as strong ridging /500MB standard anomaly nearing +4 - which is VERY rare/. Here, the "Italian" gent (I assume) Mr. Fracasso is referring to the giant "ridge or hill" developing off and over the west coasts of the US and Canada and well into Alaska. This, ridge in turn, will grab and help plunge the polar air that two polar vortex's (one, over Siberia/Russian and the other over eastern Canada) have pinwheeling between them in a very cold conveyor-belt more reminiscent of January! Take a look>>>

And the map above is a week from now (11/9) which brings up the third notable item about this cold wave - it's endurance! The polar plunge is slated to push into Southeast Lower Michigan by Tuesday night (below) and then, hang around to get reinforcements into the following week (11/16-22)!

Two other things come to my mind this early on; One- I'll be damn surprised if we don't place in or near the top 10 coldest Novembers - barring any extreme warm-up the last week. The last time we placed in the top 20 record coldest November's list was back 1997, in the 20th position with 37.1 degrees. A colder and much better placement occurred just the year before in 1996 with a 34.2 - which placed 3rd! Ironically, the year before that /1995/ we again placed in coldest Novembers list, with 35.5 degrees - 9th spot.

Rank	Detroit Area*				Flint Bishop**				Saginaw Area***
	Coldest		Warmest		Coldest		Warmest		Coldest		Warmest
	Temp	Year	Temp	Year	Temp	Year	Temp	Year	Temp	Year	Temp	Year
1	29.8	1880	47.8	1931	31.3	1951	47.3	1975	29.8	1951	47.2	1931
2	33.5	1976	47.6	2001	32.0	1995	46.6	2001	31.6	1995	45.9	1975
3	34.2	1996	46.9	1902	32.6	1996	46.2	1931	32.5	1959	45.5	1902
4	34.5	1875	46.8	1975	33.0	1959	44.4	1934	33.3	1976	45.3	2001
5	34.6	1951	46.6	2011	33.3	1976	43.8	1938	33.6	1933	43.5	1909
6	34.9	1894	46.0	1963	34.3	1936	43.7	2011	33.9	1996	43.2	2009
7	35.2	1967	45.7	1948	34.4	1933	43.3	1963	33.9	1955	43.1	2011
8	35.4	1936	45.5	1994	34.8	1967	43.2	1948	34.2	1989	43.0	1963
9	35.5	1995	45.3	2009	34.8	1955	42.8	1999	34.2	1967	42.4	1999
10	35.5	1911	45.2	1999	35.0	1947	42.5	2003	34.2	1950	42.4	1948

Two - It will be interesting to see if we can challenge the resilient stretch of record low temperatures for mid November that I wrote about here, previously as SE_Mich Weather Historian (and earlier with the NWS). This record cold stretch occurred /1880/ way back near the dawn /1874/ of official records at Detroit and still hold up till this day! Both the intensity of the cold that we experience and timing may be an issue, we'll see. Something to keep in mind, especially if we have snow on the ground at the time. By the way, the last time we had a record low temperature in November is back in 1991 - and we had four during that cold snap.


DETROIT - NOVEMBER RECORD LOW MAXS AND LOWS IN BLUE

18	48	34	41.0	69/1941	18/1880	55/1954	11/1880	60/1954	14/1880	0.97/1929	18
19	47	33	40.0	68/1985	22/1880	58/1985	9/1880	63/1985	16/1880	1.07/1948	19
20	47	33	40.0	70/1942	23/1895	57/1913	12/1880	60/1931	19/1880	1.02/1988	20
21	46	33	39.0	67/1913	12/1880	56/1931	3/1880	61/1931	8/1880	1.16/2007	21
22	46	32	39.0	69/1913	16/1880	57/2010	0/1880	62/1913	8/1880	2.59/1909	22
23	45	32	38.0	69/1931	21/1880	57/1931	8/1880	63/1931	14/1880	1.24/1891	23

Again, if you'd like to read about the November 1880 stretch of record cold, click here.

And if you missed the upcoming winter's outlook, click here.

Making weather fun while we all learn,
Bill Deedler -SEMI_WeatherHistorian