My Best Guess at Winter

Twenty years ago making a 6 month forecast was for the fool hardy. Things have changed dramatically since then. Our knowledge of how the atmosphere reacts to the oceans is still in the fundamental stages, but we do know enough to make some guesses.

Season long forecasts look at things like El Nino and La Nina. A Pressure pattern called the Arctic oscillation and even the number of Hurricanes in the Atlantic basin. The oceans drive the weather on our planet. The more we know about them the better our long range forecasts will become.

The method works like this. Analyze the current state of conditions in the ocean. The current phase of the Arctic and North Atlantic oscillation (N.A.O.) and the all important ENSO (El Nino southern oscillation). Then look back at past winters that had similar conditions and see what it was like. That's your forecast.

That said, a long range forecast has a high potential for being wrong. So you have been warned... take the following with a grain of salt!

We've had a string of warm winters around here. Some wet and some dry but no real deep and prolonged cold waves for quite awhile. No real snowfall here in 3 years at least. So we are overdue for a harsher winter.

Keep in mind that we were overdue last year too!

This year we have no El Nino and no La Nina. Does not look like one will develop either. So this is a La Nada year!

That argues for a normal type winter around here.

Hang on a second though. Joe Bastardi, a senior Forecaster for Accu-Weather in State College, PA. makes a good point about this year's very active hurricane season. All that unusually warm water in the Atlantic Basin should have an affect as well. Joe found that in past active hurricane years, the northeast had a colder and snowier winter. The warm air drops pressures and causes the cold air to drain off the continent further to the east.

This goes along with the North Atlantic Oscillation (N.A.O.) going negative frequently this winter. (There is even some relationship between the phase of the N.A.O. and the sunspot cycle!... Remember that big solar flare??). A negative N.A.O. brings cold into the East.

That said, if conditions do not change drastically, we can probably expect a regular winter around here. Perhaps some more significant cold outbreaks than we have seen. With enough cold air, we may also get a couple of shots at a snow storm too.

Compared to the last two winters here, I will forecast a colder one this year with 1 2-4 inch snow fall and a dusting or two to boot.

Later,
Dan