Proximity of snow cover in the Missouri Valley coupled with a northerly air mass trajectory drove over-achieving cold mornings this weekend in Louisiana.

Gas population weight HDD anomaly forecasts certainly reveal the bold bias across the North, East and into the South into early February followed by a shift of the cold (and attendant heating demand) westward into the middle third of February.

Sings that La Nina may be breaking down as a Kelvin Wave emerges rapidly and shifts east in the equatorial Pacific Ocean subsurface to near 140W. If this feature reaches the northwest coast of South AMerica in a couple weeks, La Nina will continue to decay as observed last week.

Selected cities across Argentina are used to project the peak of the developing heatwave and the eventual demise as cooling thunderstorms arrive early next week. Maximum temperatures during the period are generally in the 105-110F range cooling to the 70's and low 80's early next week due to much needed rainfall.