With a good portion of agricultural Manitoba seeing the first snow of winter, I thought it might be a good idea to expand on last week s November weather outlook and take a look at what all the different forecasters predict for this upcoming winter. Will it be an easy winter with little snow and warm temperatures? Or will it be a brutally cold winter with more snow than we know what to do with?
I guess the best place to start off is to look at the state of current large-scale global weather patterns. The biggest large-scale patterns that affect our weather, especially in the winter, are the ocean temperature anomalies over the Pacific Ocean. Better known as El Nio and La Nia, these changes in ocean temperature can have a very significant effect on our weather. Currently there is a weak La Nia occurring (colder-than-average ocean temperatures) and most of the models predict it to become stronger as the winter progresses. Typically, when there is a moderate to strong La Nia, North America sees some very specific winter weather depending on where you live.
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Over the U.S. South it tends to be warm and dry, which is something this region does not need. Over along the West Coast, centred around the Vancouver area, this region typically sees cold, wet winters. Out east, La Nia winters will often be warmer than average, but also wetter than average. In our neck of the woods La Nia winters tend to be colder than average, with near-average amounts of precipitation. Looking at all of the different long-range forecasts that have been produced so far this fall, it seems most of them are singing the La Nia song. If you like cold, snowy winters, then you ll like what they re singing.
Let s start off with theOld Farmer s Almanac sforecasts. It calls for winter to start off with average temperature and snowfall, transitioning into colder and colder conditions with lighter amounts of snow. TheCanadian Farmers Almanacappears to be calling for near-average temperatures for most of the winter, with well-above-average snowfall. They mention fair and pleasant temperatures several times for the winter and they also mention at least one or two heavy snowfalls in pretty much each winter month.
Environment Canada, which was leaning toward a warmer-than-average winter a couple of months ago, is now singing from the La Nia songbook. Its winter forecast calls for colder-than-average temperatures all winter long, with near-average amounts of snow. Eastern regions, near Ontario, may see above-average amounts of snow. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the American equivalent to Environment Canada, calls for colder-than-average temperatures this winter, along with above-average amounts of snow, with the best chance of heavy snows being out west.
Their words
A couple of new forecasts that I haven t included in the past are from AccuWeather and Weather Center. AccuWeather calls for and these are their words a brutally cold and snowy winter for our region. The Weather Center, which has just put out its first-ever winter forecast, also calls for cold and snowy weather this winter, but they decided to use the wordfrigidinstead ofbrutalto describe the cold.
Finally, I guess I ll pipe in with my two cents. My gut prediction for this winter s weather is that, when all is said and done, it will end up being an average winter in both the temperature and precipitation department. I don t think it will feel like an average winter, though. Again, this is just my gut feeling on this, but I think we will see a winter of stark contrasts. We ll see periods of well-above-average temperatures and periods of you guessed it brutally cold weather. Going hand in hand with these temperature swings will be storm systems. I think it is going to be a fairly stormy winter, with at least a couple of really big storms. These storms will bring most of our snow, with very few light snow events.
With most of the long-range forecasts predicting a cold and snowy winter, it almost feels like it is inevitable, but as we so often see, Mother Nature can and will do as she pleases.
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This is just my gut feeling on this, but I think we will see a winter of stark contrasts.
