The National Weather Service has issued its predictions for the upcoming winter, and for most of the country, the outlook is for warmer than usual temperatures. The persistent drought in the Southeast is also a concern in the press release put out by NOAA. Here’s a look at the predicted temperatures from December, 2007 through February 2008:

While the greatest chances for above normal temperatures are in the southern Plains states, virtually the entire country with the exception of the Northwest is expected to be warmer than normal. Cooler than normal temperatures aren’t predicted for anywhere in the country. Part of this is due to the long-term trend towards warmer temperatures compared to NOAA’s base years of 1970-2000, and the other part is due to the La Nina conditions expected this winter, particularly in the southeast. Even though temperatures are predicted to be warmer than normal, the Weather Services says that on a nationwide basis, they should be cooler than the 2006-07 winter.

As far as the chance of precipitation goes, much of the southeast and southwest is predicted to be drier than normal, while the northwest is going to be wetter than normal, both due to the La Nina conditions. Also predicted to be wetter than normal is much of the Midwest.

The weather service stressed that this outlook isn’t a snowfall forecast for the season, claiming that it’s difficult to predict exact snowfall patterns more than two weeks out, which is true. I’m a bit surprised that NOAA used the long range outlooks they issued back on September 20th as the basis for their winter outlook, when an updated one is due out in a week, and should in theory be more accurate. Perhaps they wanted to be ‘in the lead’, prior to other forecasters making their predictions.

Posted on Wednesday, October 10th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
Categories: Winter 2007-08, Winter Forecasts.
Tags: La Nina/El Nino.
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