Captain's Log 24 Feb '20 Monday

Happy Monday! :) Especially happy if you like the fact that "Meteorological Winter" is over in 6 days! CLICK ON IMAGES FOR A LARGER VIEW

The world weather LAST WEEK (16-22 February) showed the Southeast was the cold and snowy spot in the U.S. trending both colder than last year and colder than average. The rest of the U.S. trended much warmer than a year ago, especially on the weekend.



The Polar Vortex remains very strong and symmetrical and that simply isn't allowing any prolonged invasions of cold weather in the U.S.



Another major climate cycle change is a potentially moderate to strong La Nina developing here in 2020 and extending into 2021. This will slowly end the wet pattern in the U.S. with a much drier pattern later this year into 2021. This combined with other cycles suggests we're headed for a very active 2020 hurricane season in the Atlantic Basin with our early outlook suggesting 20 named systems with our highest land falling risks in New England and Florida.



This week (24 Feb - 1 Mar) shows another fast moving pattern going from a very warm weekend and start to the week to a colder late week-weekend period. For the U.S. overall the week looks to trend 4.2F warmer than last year, 16th warmest of the past 35 years with above average national temperatures. Rainfall is the driest in 6 years, 13th driest in 35 years with below average rain and snow.



Next week (2-8 March) is much warmer than last year with one of the biggest year-over-year changes toward much warmer weather in decades. Last year was the coldest in over 35 years while this year looks to trend 14.6F warmer than a year ago and 6th warmest of the past 35 years. A huge opportunity for early Spring merchandise. Rainfall is on the stormy side in the South Central U.S. with a potential severe weather outbreak. Snowfall is expected to remain 25% less than last year and near to below average nationally.



Using our Power of 1 Degree technology, we expect strong double digit sales gains for many Spring seasonal items next week when temperatures are 10 to 25 degrees warmer than last year!



Snow Cover this morning (24 Feb) was the 2nd least in 17 years and much below average with only 26% of the country blanketed in snow. Last year 53% of the U.S. still had snow on the ground.





Winter snowfall continues to trend the least in 8 years and 24% less than last year. This is exactly what WTI's year-ahead outlook indicated. Still a month or so to go for snow threats but very likely the Spring trends remain well below the past couple years.



The table above highlights some of the big weather weeks for the U.S. overall this Winter. The coldest week of Winter was 15-21 December, the 2nd coldest period was around Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend and Valentine's Day weekend. The week before Christmas also showed the greatest year-over-year change toward much snowier weather. The snowiest weeks were in middle January and early February. Late January and late February showed the greatest trends toward much warmer year-over-year trends. How did your sales perform in these extreme weather weeks?



Snowfall totals to date in the Eastern U.S. are generally below to much below normal for most with only extreme inland New England areas showing normal to slightly above normal seasonal snowfall totals. Philadelphia as an example is trending the 2nd least snowfall in over 125 years.



One of many cycles that point to a much warmer Spring this year is the lack of ice coverage on the Great Lakes. Only 9% of the lakes have ice cover vs 57% last year. The sun will spend less time trying to melt ice and more time heating up the land.

Looking back at past low ice coverage Winters, we see warm Springs as a result. 2017, 2016, 2012 and 2002 had very low ice coverage at this point in the season and they ended up with very warm Spring conditions for the Eastern half of the country.



This past weekend brought middle 50 temperatures to Eastern PA, much above average, so the little Angelina Kirk declared "Winter is CLOSED, Spring is OPEN", so time for flying her kite! Watch today's video at the end as she does some impressive "loop-T-loops"

Have a great last week of Winter and don't forget to follow us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest and Linkedin

- Captain Kirk out.