Joe’s Blog: El Nino winters (FRI-11/3)

Good morning…still watching the potential of some rain for Saturday which may impact temperatures in a not so great way…that after some spectacular weather today. We’ll update that for you on the newscasts or you can refer back to yesterday’s blog for additional information.

Today’s blog will be the 2nd part of what I was writing about on Wednesday. That was the 1st blog dedicated to El Nino…this will be the 2nd one.

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One sentence forecast: After wonderful windy weather again today…there may be some showers in the area tomorrow

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Forecast:

Today: Partly Cloudy with more clouds at times. Windy and warmer again with highs in the mid 60s-upper 60s.

Tonight: Fair and cool with lows in the lower 40s.

Saturday: Variable clouds with scattered areas of rain and drizzle. Temperatures may get stuck in the 50s if there is enough rain coverage…if not…60s

Sunday: Should be the better and bright day of the weekend with highs back to near 70°

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Discussion:

So again let’s dive back into El Nino.

There is a general BUT NOT absolute way of seeing how things play out during El Nino’s and winters in this country. This is the very(!) general idea

Now these “general” forecasts rarely work out to close to accurate in my opinion. There are so many different things that come into play…I feel that these generalized forecasts don’t play out usually. Don’t get me wrong…there will absolutely be times this winter that the above plays out…it’s just that I don’t feel that these times outnumber the other times of different patterns producing different things.

Now the more defined forecast from the Climate Prediction Center for December through February (2023-24) is this…

Sort of like the generalized ideas from the 1st graphic I showed you right?

The one thing that I sort of have confidence in is the more active southern moisture conveyor that should give the southern US tier more precipitation that average. They could use it, especially with the low river levels and ongoing drought conditions down there…

That’s still not good down across LA and parts of E Texas…expanding into the TN Valley…so they need moisture, however they can get it.

What’s interesting though concerning the trends overall for winter snow, regardless of El Nino, La Nina or “La Nada” is the snow trends over the decades in the big picture.

This shows the trends from January to March…

The browns are decreases…and there is a lot of terrain where brown shows itself.

As we talked about in the previous blog…this is going to be a moderate to strong El Nino when things come together as they are now. So of the previous moderate to strong El Nino’s (13)…how did the snow average out…

The reds show the frequency of lower than average snow totals out of the 13 that we’re monitored and there is certainly some red around these parts.

As I mentioned at the start, one of the things I do have more confidence about is that there should be a good southern jet stream bringing moisture into the SW and southern US…that could mean IF there was cold air around…the potential of additional ice and snow in the southern US compared to average…especially from I-44/I-40 southwards into Dixie.

The question as always is WILL there be cold air around this winter and enough to help with snow production which can be a chore around these parts. We’ve already seen some nice pushes of cold weather into the region this fall…can we continue that at times over the winter…my initial thought is yes we can.

Now the next thing is will that southern moisture be able to link up with the colder air masses coming into the region…and instead of things being too far south of the area…we get more weather action of a winter variety locally? I think it’s certainly on the table.

Can we do better than this…via Midwest Climate Center