Although winter outlooks typically don’t arrive until mid-October, Accuweather has released a preliminary look at the likely weather for Winter 2006-2007. Not surprisingly, the forecast is pretty typical of what you would expect for an El Nino year.

Meteorologist Joe Bastardi of Accuweather says that the weather along the east coast will likely be stormier than normal — typical of El Nino years. Bastardi predicts a relatively mild start to the season in the Northeast, followed by cooler weather in January and February. Whether this will lead to a greater chance of snowfall is really a matter of timing, since the cold Arctic air must be in place at the same time the storms are.

In the west, Bastardi says the weather is likely to be dryer than normal due to an extended high pressure system, and warmer than normal as well.

None of this is particularly earth-shaking, but again these are September predictions, three to five months out. Look for more specific Winter outlooks to be issued next month by all the major forecasters.

Taking a look at the weather in the short term, though, the cold front passed through the Atlanta area this afternoon, dropping dewpoints by 15 degrees between 2 and 6 PM as the storms cleared out. Behind the front is a taste of fall, with temperatures dropping into the 50s, and highs for the next few days not breaking 80. We may be getting into one of those annoying patterns where bad weather arrives just in time for the weekend for the next few weeks, with long range forecasts calling for a chance of rain this weekend, and again at the end of the month.

A few quick weather ideas today …

The hurricane season starts tomorrow, and Drs Gray and Klotzbach of Colorado State University have updated their hurricane forecast for the year … somewhat. They haven’t changed their ideas at all from their original forecast last December, calling for 17 named storms, and 5 intense hurricanes. That’s slightly over what the National Hurricane Center is calling for, and more than what Accuweather’s Joe Bastardi is calling for, with 3 major storms making landfall, with the most activity in the Texas area early in the season, and the Carolinas and East Coast late in the season.

Meanwhile, protesters are at the headquarters of NOAA in Maryland calling for the resignation of National Hurricane Center Max Mayfield because he refuses to endorse the idea that global warming is causing the increase in tropical activity. Mayfield’s view is that the uptick in hurricane activity is the result of a multi decade cycle that has repeated itself over the years, and happens to be in a strong phase now. He does not believe that global warming has anything to do with it. Accweather’s Bastardi has a similar opinion in his article from the Durham Herald Sun.

Metro Atlanta may get its first real chance of significant rainfall since back on May 10th on Thursday and Friday. After spending the last two weeks dominated by a high pressure ridge, the trough that had been further west is moving east, and could bring some rainfall, although it appears the worst of it will be further north. After all the heat over the last ten days, I’ll be glad for some rain.

And, the weather service has updated its forecast for June. They predict that warmer than normal temperatures will dominate much of the southern plains states, from Arizona, New Mexico, and west Texas north to the Canadian border. Below normal rainfall is predicted in an oval centered over Nebraska, and extending southeast to the Tennessee-Alabama border. For Georgia, the weather service is calling for equal chances of above or below normal temperatures and precipitation.

The shorter term forecast is for below normal temperatures and normal to below normal rainfall in north Georgia from the 6th to the 14th. They have been advertising this drop to below normal temps for the last few days, and it seems like they’re pushing it back much the way they kept predicting the current warm spell to start in early May, and then pushed it back until it finally got here. We finally got the above normal temperatures, and I suspect that we will see the cool spell as well.

From a meteorological standpoint, winter is over, having ended yesterday. So, how did we do?

Here are the average temperatures, month by month, along with normals:
December: 40.7 46.8 6.1 degrees below normal
January: 48.3 42.7 7.6 degrees above normal
February: 44.3 46.8 2.5 degrees below normal
Winter: 44.4 45.4 1.0 degree below normal

So, we ended up, in the means, about a degree below normal for the winter, although we saw wild swings in the monthly temperatures.

When you take a look back at the early forecasts for winter, it looks like everybody got it right as far as temperatures go, except for the Weather Service, which issued a forecast of equal chances of above or below normal. Kudos go to the Farmer’s Almanac, which predicted the great swings from cold to warm, and then back again.

In the snowfall department, where we really didn’t see anything that caused any major problems at all, Kirk Melhuish got it spot on, with WeatherAmerica and AccuWeather widely missing the mark.

Overall, I would give the best grades to Kirk Melhuish, who was right on both temperature and precipitation.

Speaking of forecasts, I caught Joe Bastardi of Accuweather on Fox News over the weekend, talking about the upcoming hurricane season. While we’re about a month away from the official forecasts, he warned that based on similar patterns in the past, we’re likely to see another active season in 2006, with a probability of hurricanes striking the Atlantic coast, perhaps as far north as the New York area.

Shorter term, we may end up with a more or less normal March. The weather service is calling for equal chances of above or below normal temperatures and precipitation in Georgia for March. Warm weather is expected in Texas, and colder than normal weather is predicted in California. If the Climate Predication Center is right, it will also be rainy in California, and dry in Texas and Florida.

Texas is already feeling the heat, with highs around 90 today. Lawrenceville reached its high so far for the year, with 74.4 degrees. (The normal is 60 degrees). But, it won’t last: after another above normal temperature day tomorrow, it will be cooling down to normal temperatures, although, it’s likely to stay dry for a while, adding to a rainfall deficit for the year.