Basically average...that is to say winter conditions, but not abnormal conditions, are expected over the lower 48 during the last full week of the month. A deep upper trough over southern Hudson's Bay will maintain a northwesterly flow from western Canada into the US Midwest, Ohio Valley and Northeast. That general pattern is expected to continue through the period although temperatures will gradually modify as the pattern flattens out a little toward the end of the month. The usually reliable European long range is a bit colder than the NAEFS (Canadian/US blend). Over the West temperatures should moderate somewhat as high pressure builds onto the coast, replacing very cold Canadian high pressure (and its origins in the Arctic) with cool Pacific high pressure. This is a classic winter blocking pattern and confidence is fairly high in this forecast.

This week shows a very amplified pattern to start with a deep very cold trough over the center of the continent, running from Baffin Island in the Canadian high Arctic south to West Texas. A sharp ridge of warm high pressure runs north-north east from just off the Florida coast to Newfoundland. A cold front, running South South-West from near Sudbury Ontario to a position just between Nashville and Memphis and down to just east of Lake Charles Louisiana, separates the two air masses. West of the front temperatures are very cold ranging from about 10 degrees F below normal to as much as 35. (Reno 18 below normal, Vegas 13 below, Los Angeles 10 below, Denver 32 below, Phoenix 14 below) but east of the front temperatures are generally well above average with a notable exception. Although east of the front but west of the Appalachians, temperatures have risen as much as 27 degrees above average during the last day or two, east of the Appalachians daytime heating has been limited by trapped cold air and fog. So NYC has been limited to 12 or 13 degrees above average for the last few days rather than the 25+ experienced by clearer areas west of the coastal plain.

The cold front will cross the Atlantic coast at NYC Monday evening, and it's all downhill from there for the NE. Temperatures should decline to near normal this week, and to below normal by Saturday. Over the SE, the front will approach but stall over N. Georgia by the middle of the week, leaving the deep South with near normal conditions. The far west will moderate a bit after mid week as high pressure builds overhead, although persistent temperature inversions and trapped cold air in valleys will keep temperature below normal in the inter-mountain big cities thru the week. Over the Ohio Valley, Midwest and northern plains it will be cool to start the week, with a more significant cool off near next weekend as a new surge of arctic air drives south from the northern Plains to the Great Lakes Thursday and Friday.

This week''s NG extraction number should be less than the 5 year average due to the elevated temps in the east, but not as low as I had earlier thought due to a very cool west and persistent foggy clammy conditions on the northwestern Atlantic seaboard and the attendant lack of a major warm-up there last week. Extractions to be reported on Thursday the 24th and the 31st should be well above the 5 year average.