Oak Hill, WV (WOAY-TV): We will return back to a cold snap following a midweek warming trend, but the reason for the pattern change is a former West Pacific tropical system.
Follow me, folks. You see that line on the left hand side of your screen with that little spiraling icon? That is former super typhoon Belhaven last week in the West Pacific. Watch it accelerate north along that line and then head into the Gulf of Alaska over the last 24 hours.
We can really see it with the pressure field, watch, believe and accelerate towards Alaska. A big blue blob develops in the Gulf of Alaska, expands a ridge across the West, and that will send a downstream trough or cold blast into our region just in time for this weekend.
While the pattern is not unusual, but at the same time it doesn’t happen very often. These recurving typhoons tend to move up towards Alaska and enhance the trough there. Then, a high pressure ridge and warmth develops in the West and the East turns chilly.
The same thing happened with recurving Typhoon Oscar in 1995. That particular storm system brought a cold blast in the central and eastern U.S. And guess what? Our coldest weather in September was on the 23rd with the low temperature of 41 degrees.
Chief Meteorologist Chad Merrill’s latest forecast:
