Tag: forecast

Here Is a Summary of our Impressive Winter Storm from January 12th through the 15th

A rapidly deepening storm tracked Texas on Thursday afternoon to the northern Great Lakes by Saturday morning. The storm brought 1 to 2 feet of snow from Nebraska, across Iowa, Wisconsin then into Michigan. Strong winds accompanied the storm then the coldest air in several years followed the storm with dangerously cold wind chills over most of the Northern and Central Midwest. That cold air caused heavy lake effect snow in Michigan, near Buffalo New York and over the Tug Hill Plateau in the Adirondack Mountains, down wind of Lake Ontario.

I have had quiet a few question on if we will have White Christmas this year. This post will try to answer that.

The short story is if you live in the central or eastern CONUS it is very unlikely you’ll have snow on the ground Christmas morning.

I have updated this to show the percent snow cover and ENSO state for each of the 10 years. At the end I have 2 tables that show the years with the ENSO index numbers and the snow cover for that Christmas. The bottom table sorts the percent snow cover from highest to lowest to see if there is a correlation between the ENSO state and the percent snow cover on Christmas day.

Area Covered By Snow:53%
In 2022, ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation) was -1.0 while the MEI index was -1.0 making this a moderate La Niña.
Area Covered By Snow:26.6%
2021 was a moderate La Niña, the ONI index was -1.2 while the MEI index was -1.0.
Area Covered By Snow:26.5%
2020 was ENSO neutral with the ONI index at +0.5 while the MEI index was 0.3.
Area Covered By Snow:28.1%

2019 was ENSO neutral with the ONI index at +0.7 while the MEI index was 0.1.
Area Covered By Snow:24.6%
2018 was a weak La Niña, the ONI index was -0.9 while the MEI index was -0.8.
Area Covered By Snow:49.0%
2017 was ENSO neutral with the ONI index at -0.3 while the MEI index was -0.4.
Area Covered By Snow:44.1%
Area Covered By Snow:
24.6%
2016 was a strong El Niño, the ONI index was +2.5 while the MEI index was +1.9. The ONI at 2.5 was an all time record for the ONI index.
Area Covered By Snow:37.2%
2015 was ENSO neutral with the ONI index at 0.5 while the MEI index was 0.2. This was the start of the strong El Niño that lasted from the spring of 2016 into the spring of 2017.
Area Covered By Snow:35.5%
2014 was ENSO neutral with the ONI index at -0.4 while the MEI index was -0.5.
Area Covered By Snow:41.7%
2013 was ENSO neutral with the ONI index at -0.4 while the MEI index was 0.0.

Below is a table showing the percent snow cover on Christmas

Below is a table showing the percent snow cover on Christmas Day in chronological order.

Below is a table showing ENSO numbers and the percent snow cover on Christmas day for that year sorted from the highest percent snow cover to the lowest. There does not seem to be a significant correlation to the ENSO state and the percent snow cover on Christmas Day.

This is an updated version of my Winter Forecast

My actual forecast remains unchanged. I mostly updated the ENSO slides and added monthly model forecasts from the ECMWF and the CFSv2. 

CPC’s forecast for this winter has not changed significantly in the past few months.

The QBO should allow for more arctic air to reach the CONUS once we get into January and February.

I am thinking snowfall will generally be below normal over Michigan, however sections of the East Coast, from North Carolina to Maine could have well above normal snowfall since El Nino’s favor Nor-Easters (Coastal Storms). When we get into a cooler pattern in January, I’d expect to see some heavy snow events along the east coast. See slide 48 for details.

It is looking like December 2023 will end up being in the top 5 warmest Decembers on record across Michigan. This will likely be true not only in Michigan but across most of the northern CONUS.

So far, as of the 16th, December is averaging 6 to 8 degrees above normal across Southern Lower Michigan. Flint is warmest with +7.8, while while Grand Rapids is the least with +5.5. Most other climate sites are between 6 and 7 degrees warmer than normal through the 16th in Michigan. Over northern Michigan Alpena has the least positive departure with +4.1 while Gaylord is +5.9 and Traverse City is +5.1. We are expecting two cold days (Monday and Tuesday) but the rest of December is expected to well above normal. Thus, December 2023 is likely to be in the top 5 warmest on record over most of Lower Michigan.

I thought it would be fun to look at our Fall of 2023 climate and now close what happened came to what would typically happen during an El Niño Fall.

In our string of nationally much warmer than normal seasons, the fall of 2023 was 124th out of 129 falls for warmer than normal. This puts this fall warmer than 96% of all falls since 1895! No area of the CONUS had a below normal temperatures (bottom 1/3 coldest) this fall.