The next major issue for the U.S. is an arctic outbreak scheduled to arrive across the northern Great Plains Wednesday night, according to the just arrived 12Z GFS. On Thursday, the arctic boundary shifts southward reaching Des Moines to Chicago early evening, accelerating southward Thursday night to northwest Texas Friday morning and eastward across Arkansas to the Ohio Valley. By Friday afternoon, the arctic air is filtering through New England and into the northern Mid-Atlantic region southwestward to northern Texas.

The ECM 30-day Madden Julian oscillation forecast indicates a phase_6 to phase_7 shift with intensity the second half of January followed by a phase_8 to phase_1 shift the first half of February. The phase_8 to phase_1 shift is eastward through the longitudes of the Americas and represents a hot and dry correlation to Australia climate.

The updated 15-day arctic oscillation (AO) forecast maintains a moderate to strong negative phase for the remainder of January eventually causing cold weather in each sector of the mid-latitude northern hemisphere. In Europe, short-term mild climate steadily fades into the deep freeze the last third of January.

Into mid-year through early next year, the South America climate forecast is primarily reliant on the arrival and intensification of El Nino. Forecast highlights include a hot and dry Southeast Brazil regime in February followed by a mostly dry Brazil during autumn while lingering anomalous heat affects Argentina. The winter season is milder than normal. Next spring and summer are mostly hotter/drier than normal across Brazil away from the coast.

The 15-day AO outlook strengthens the negative phase. The projected JAN-26 value is near -2.0 rivaled most recently by JAN-21 (-2.4) and JAN-10 (-2.6). Right now, arctic air mass stretches across Eurasia. During the 6-10-day period, the 500 MB anomaly outlook projects a “ridge bridge” over Alaska. The upper ridge causes a cross-polar low-level air mass trajectory taking arctic air from Russia into North America.