Now we are a week into January and lots of questions are being lobbed at me about the LACK of winter weather so far this season. Yes, we had a cold and snowy November but December and early January have been duds for snow/cold. And the forecast looks mighty balmy for the next week to 10 days. Let’s address some of the most common questions.

WHY HAS IT BEEN SO WARM AND SNOW-FREE?

The atmosphere is an extraordinarily complex fluid sitting on top of a rotating sphere. Figuring it out is hard! But humans are smart and the accuracy rate for day-to-day forecasts is exceptional (despite the tired old meteorologist jokes). But seasonal forecasting is a whole different ball game. There IS skill in this part of the meteorological enterprise but it’s nowhere near the skill we have in creating a forecast for the next 7-10 days.

There was a strong consensus that this winter would be a cold one in our area. Nearly every forecast (including mine) that I saw advertised at the very least a slightly cold winter and some went “all in” and suggested severe cold was plausible. I hedged by bets a bit and was not nearly as cold as some other sources. The atmosphere just “wants” to be warm lately. How could so many forecasts be wrong (at least so far)?? Well as I said this is hard…and perhaps getting harder. I think climate change is making the long-term predictability of the world’s weather patterns lower.

Aside from climate change, we can point to a couple of basic factors near North America that are preventing cold from taking hold in the East.

There is a distinct lack of “blocking” in the northern and western Atlantic, as well as around the arctic circle. Notice the jet stream is nearly west-to-east across the Atlantic. When the jet buckles and bulges north toward Greenland it can force cold down into eastern North America.

On the other side of the continent there have also been a persistent lack of jet stream buckling in key areas. When the jet buckles northward toward Alaska and western North America it will induce a trough of low pressure downstream, allowing cold weather to come far enough south and east to give us periods of wintry weather. Instead, the jet is sort of just plowing into the West Coast and that’s where all the wintry weather is.

There are other things going on, including as far away as the Indian Ocean, that are unfavorable for cold in our part of the world. It’s kind of a perfect recipe for unseasonable warmth.

IS THIS EL NINO OR CLIMATE CHANGE?

There is no stout El Nino signal this season. It can be argued that there is a very weak El Nino but essentially we are in the “neutral” phase. Some of our warmest winters have occurred in strong El Nino winters but that’s not the case this year.

On the subject of climate change, a warm stretch of weather over any part of the planet can’t be directly tied to climate change but climate change does “load the dice” in favor of more frequent extremes (on the warm AND cold side). The devastating wildfires in Australia are not happening 100% because of climate change but almost certainly climate change is “supercharging” them. For us, this unseasonably warm and snow-free weather would have probably occurred anyway but climate change probably made it some percentage more “extreme”. Remember “weather is your mood, climate is your personality”.

HAS THIS EVER HAPPENED BEFORE?

This is the warmest stretch of weather on record for the period between between Christmas and January 7th. It’s the 5th warmest stretch from December 1-January 6. Just a shade warmer than the same period last year actually. There have been 6 years with fewer snowfall between December 1-January 6 than this year. November 2019 was snowy so our seasonal snow, while below average, is nowhere near a record low right now.

IS WINTER OVER? WHAT’S COMING UP?

Winter is certainly not over. Is you consider our “snow season” to be roughly November 15-March 15, we are not even halfway done. Meteorological winter (December-February) is not halfway gone.

That said, after a cold and blustery day Wednesday, truly spring-like weather is on the way for the end of the week and start of the weekend. That does not mean sunny, beautiful weather unfortunately. At least an inch and perhaps nearly 2 inches of rain is likely Friday through Saturday night.

But check out these temperatures! If thing break just right I think 60s are attainable Saturday.

Beyond that, I think the pattern is largely a mild one through mid-month. There are signs of a “less warm” pattern starting around January 17th-20th but I see no evidence of harsh cold as of yet.

Tonight’s run of the long-range European model shows some cold periods late this month but actually has a warm pattern returning in February:

14-km EPS 46-DAYS North America 5-day Avg 850T Anom (1).gif

This contradicts another suite of long-range modeling from the European Center, which is broken down by month. It’s February outlook is a colder one:

This colder forecast jives with the last few runs of the American Climate Forecast System model:

Our winter forecast used “analogs”, or years we thought that were most similar to this one. Winter 2004-2005 appeared to be the most similar when looking at global ocean and atmospheric patterns. December 2019 behaved pretty similarly to December 2004. January 2020 will end up a fair bit warmer than January 2005. What happened in February 2005??

It was warm:

I looked at the warmest 1st halves of winter (December 1-January 15) on record in Youngstown
and how February+March played out. Here’s the composite of all those years:

Not a very warm looking map but 4 of those years did have a balmy February-March combo.

SO, WHAT’S GONNA HAPPEN?

There are conflicting signals surrounding February at this point. The smart money remains on warm rather than cold, given the long-term trends. But there will certainly be periods of cold and snow before spring settles in for good. Even in warm, benign winters we have several snow “events” and there’s still PLENTY of time for that to be the case this time around.