Summary
Every year the weather pattern begins to change, in late July and August, to establish a new pattern that will cycle regularly until the next year. It slowly morphs into a new and unique pattern. We are about 2/3’s of the way through that transition. The fourth storm of this new pattern is showing up on the GFS for next Tuesday.
A trough will form offshore and then sweep across Nevada, Utah and Colorado while tapping into a tropical system that is spinning up from Baha California. This is still over a week away so the details will likely change, but this is new and will be a feature for the coming winter.
If this system holds together, it will bring some much-needed rain to California.
This is the first storm that has dropped deep from the summer circulation pattern. This time of year is the weakest for the jet stream, so storms stay north of the American border and cycle through Canada.
The jet stream position is created by temperature contrasts between warm air and cold air, and other factors (Hadley and Ferrel cells, Coriolis effect, etc) that I will not get into because that would be very lengthily. For this discussion though, it is one of the indicators of the approaching fall.
As the jet stream increases in strength, it will dive deeper into America, like it is projected to next week. Again, it is a long way out (200+ hours), but this is new and exciting for the upcoming pattern.
New Features Coming
We are working with our web developers to add some new features for the coming season. This will be our third year and I am excited to bring you the most accurate forecasts, so you can plan your vacation days and trips well over 30 days in advance.
Last year on November 26th, our algorithm was set, we put out our forecast for through January 22nd. 
That was 18 for 18 with the bulk of the forecast beyond 28 days out, all the way to 57 days in advance.
This year we hope to bring you the algorithm forecast earlier, for those of you who like to get out in November. Our winter outlook forecast will be out around the first of October.
Thanks for reading! Mike
