After a stormy few weeks the weather takes a calm turn for the upcoming period with the cold relaxing by the weekend.  Our weather will be dominated by the drier more northern jet stream the next week and as that lifts further north milder air will also ensue.  You may not realize that there are often several jet streams that circle the planet as various levels.  The two jet streams that tend to impact our weather are the polar and subtropical jets.  The polar jet stream brings the cold and the subtropical brings moisture and warmth.  During last weekend’s snowstorm both jet streams combined and formed that massive storm which eventually gave eastern sections of the state up to 20 inches of snow.

I’ll be updating what I see for the new weather pattern on Twitter at @growingwisdom and check out my latest videos at growingwisdom.com

 This week and into much of next week the jet stream will take on what meteorologists call a "split flow".  This means that the two jet streams are split apart and the cold and moisture from each won’t get together to form much in the way of significant.  Additionally, after tomorrow, the core of the arctic air retreats back into Canada, this will return our temperatures to typical January cold with afternoon highs in the upper 20s and lower 30s instead of the upper teens and lower 20s we will have today and Thursday.

 You might ask, when is the next snowstorm? Right now, unless the models change I don’t see any big snow for the next 10 days, that puts us close to mid-month without another storm.  Thus far, we have seen above normal snowfall for the season so a two week break in snow won’t hurt averages too much, but I know winter sports enthusiasts would like to see a good storm to freshen things up a bit. The longer range models keep us snowstorm free through the middle of the month.  After that it becomes a bit of a guessing game so I don’t want to speculate.  

Gardening This week’s video talks about soil compaction. If you have an area of your lawn that won’t grow grass very well or a tree that isn’t performing, the issue might be soil compaction. Take a look at this video and see how soil compaction can be fixed.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this blog or any others. Please follow me on Twitter at @growingwisdom and check out my latest videos at GrowingWisdom.com