Right Forecast - Wrong Reason

Newsweek blogger Sharon Begley has posted a mid-season review of Dr. Judah Cohen/s (AER...Inc.) long-range '07 / '08 winter forecast.

Cohen/s "...forecast calls for a cold start to December in the East and a mild early January, followed by a possible return to the deep freeze around Martin Luther King's birthday" (emphasis added).

He attributes these events to "...extensive snow cover in Siberia (which) sets in motion a train of meteorological events, with energy waves propagating to the stratosphere, where they weaken the vortex of winds over the North Pole."

Begley gives Cohen/s forecast high marks. "Don’t say we didn’t warn you. Anyone, especially in the northeast and Midwest, who is surprised by the arctic express that moved in over the weekend and is still gripping most of us today wasn’t paying attention last month.."

Cohen thinks he done good..too. "To predict swings in the weather almost to the day two months in advance should be impossible based on accepted climate theory," he said.

There/s room to argue whether these events have unfolded as forecast; however...the room b/comes quite small about whether Cohen/s physical reasoning was correct. Weakening the "vortex of winds over the North Pole" is a clear reference to the Arctic Oscillation going negative...which as a driver for the cold wx regime in the East...has clearly not been the case.

Right forecast - wrong reason.