By Thursday, an exceptionally
cold airmass will be in place across nearly the entire Western United States.
Unfortunately, there is actually quite good model agreement on the overall pattern over the East Pacific through the end of the month: the huge ridge over the Eastern Pacific is expected to persist and perhaps grow even more, continuing the extraordinarily dry pattern over California but allowing for occasionally large swings in temperature as a very
cold airmass over Canada is occasionally able to spill westward in weak or even slightly retrogressive (east to west) zonal flow.
Not exact matches
My thought is that the UK's temperate climate is primarily due to SWly prevailing winds blowing from the relatively warm ocean, as opposed to places on the eastern side of a large continent which will frequently receive
cold polar continental
airmasses in winter, because the mid-latitude westerlies will be blowing from a
cold continental interior.
However, by the middle of the month, the
cold air had given way to a much warmer
airmass.
The remarkably
cold modified Arctic
airmass that has brought bitterly
cold air to much of North America has now shifted eastward, and the West Coast is in the midst of a slow but substantial warming trend that will continue at least through the coming weekend.
Transitions seasons (autumn and spring) in tend to be highly volatile throughout the Earth's middle latitudes as
cold, dry polar and warm, moist tropical
airmasses interact with high frequency.