Intramonthly Indices of the Pacific/North American Teleconnection Pattern and Temperature Regimes over the United States

Abstract

Previous work has examined relationships between the planetary scale Pacific North American (PNA) teleconnection pattern and regional scale mean temperature over portions of the United States, but analyses have been restricted to monthly values of these two variables. It is not clear if this is the most appropriate scale for relating PNA patterns to temperature. In this study, PNA indices are related to various aspects of temperature over a range of time scales spanning one month. To carry this out, standardized PNA indices are calculated for 6 time intervals ranging from 5 to 30 days over a period of 27 winter seasons. Standardized regional scale temperature anomalies are assessed over various regions of the United States and used to compute mean, maximum, and minimum temperature anomalies over the same 6 time intervals. Correlation matrices are then constructed to provide relationship characteristics between the PNA indices and temperature measures within the intramonthly time scale.