Warm U.S. Gas Population Weight HDD Forecast First Half of December

Fig. 1-2: The Climate Impact Company DEC-21 U.S. temperature anomaly outlook is colder than yesterday’s NOAA/CPC temperature probability forecast.

Discussion: The Climate Impact Company constructed analog temperature anomaly forecast for December 2021 indicates cold air from Canada arrives later this month inspired by widening snow cover (Fig. 1). Meanwhile, the warm start to December biases the NOAA/CPC outlook very warm for most of the U.S. in December (Fig. 2). Based on overnight trends, forecast models are STRONGER into the middle third of December with a warmer solution in the East.

The mild pattern ahead is inspired by strong Pacific influence. During this condition high wind events have a tendency to occur in the Central U.S. High wind risk is identified in the 15-day outlook by the GFS ENS with specific regions of the Central U.S. highlighted (Fig. 3-5).

Fig. 3-5: The day 1-15 high wind risk regions across the central U.S. forecast by GFS ENS.

Fig. 6: U.S. gas population weight HDD forecast using all models and their consensus compared to 24 hours ago and the 30-year/10-year normal. The forecast is similar to 48 hours ago.