Big Ridge Revealed

Courtesy of ESRL

Reader Gary asked about the persistent ridge impacting the region. Here's the NCEP reanalysis showing the mean 500mb height anomalies Nov 10 through Dec 05. If's that too much jargon, the yellows and reds show unusually high pressure at mid levels of the atmosphere, the blues unusually low pressure. That is a huge positive anomaly through the Bering Strait for an almost four week period.