Is This Winter Going To Be Colder With More Snow? Details Inside...

I think the lack of a winter in 2011-2012 has a lot of people hoping for a bit more snow this winter. While I am not ready to make a winter forecast yet, the CPC does put out 3 month forecasts and I wanted to show you their latest winter forecast.

 

Climate Prediction Center Winter Forecast

 

The Climate Prediction Center has their December, January, and February forecast out and since these months are defined as the meteorological winter, it is worth taking a look at it this evening. CPC is forecasting a warm winter for our area.

 

CPC Winter Forecast Temperatures

Notice CPC has a medium (or 40% probability) of a warmer than normal winter. For those that love snow, this would not be what you want to see.

 

 

 

CPC Winter Forecast Precipitation

Notice CPC has a medium (or 40% probability) of a drier than normal winter. Once again, this is not what snow lovers want to hear.

 

 

 

My Thoughts On Winter

 

CPC makes a statement in their winter forecast package mentioning some of the uncertainties within their winter forecast right now. The El Niño was forecast to become more estabilished by most computer models only 1 month ago and now those long range models have backed off a lot. That means its impact is highly questionable right now. This is the one of the major reasons that I am not ready to make a winter forecast yet. I am interested to see how this evolves over the next month.

 

Beyond El Niño, we still have a monster drought in the central US. Drought modified patterns always lead to warmer than normal weather.  Notice how much real estate is cover by drought in the central US.

 

 

The large drought areas would absolutely modify air masses quickly as they moved over our area. Traditionally, this creates a pattern that will not allow long duration cold spells to exist. I want to see how the drought plays out over then next 30 days before locking into a winter forecast.

 

All in all, I feel there are some critical areas that are still in question for winter, so I will hold off for another month or so before I post my winter forecast. For me, I would rather give an accurate forecast rather than throwing darts and trying to be first. We will keep an eye on things and I will have blog updates in the coming month.

 

 

 

If you ever have any questions, please remember I can be reached on facebook easily! Just follow the link below to my facebook page and click "LIKE"!

 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Marc-Weinberg/171330336238674#!/pages/Marc-Weinberg/171330336238674

Comments

[Ben]

So in your opinion right now, would you guess that this is correct, or do you have a different view of how things will go?

[Marc Weinberg]

Ben, I am not going to make that forecast yet. I only want to make accurate forecasts and I don't feel enough has unfolded for me to do that at this point.

[Dick Lugar]

I think you are wise to wait to guesscast the Winter, however I kinda disagree with your comment "rather give an accurate forecast by waiting". Waiting until November which most services tweek and give their final call doesn't guarantee an accurate forecast especially for the 3 month Winter period. I am of the opinion that everyone is just closer to the dart board in mid to late November. Also the CPC sucks, they are correct about 10 to 20 percent of the time and that is being generous. It would seem they have painted this winter with a broad Nino brush and as you (and most I have read) have mentioned the nino is just not happening. The CPC did hit last Winter but it was pure luck. Lesson, NOBODY can foresee Winter in late November or even mid December. While you are correct throwing darts right now is not the best strategy, the outcome of a dart throw now probably has the same chance of being correct as what one might use to make their final call in November. If you recall Winter 2010 was generally called as a normal to above normal but the NAO went super negative and kicked but from about Thanksgiving through the first of February all with a strong Nino. What will determine this Winter will be what the NAO does, to a lessor extent what the AO does and where the PV sets up. I do at this point think the dry call by the CPC is totally ridiculous and a fallacy and the Winter will offer opportunity for the exact opposite with MAN precip depending on the temps of course would give us a shot at some good snows should the NAO goes Neg and the PV sets up on this side of the Hemisphere .....In my opinion of course.

[Marc Weinberg]

Dick Lugar, I have to admit I don't forecast with the alphabet soup. I think so many people lose the meteorology involved when the forecast with indices. I have made it a priority to follow the science rather than the alphabet soup.