What we might expect this Winter
Cold and snowy this winter? As always, it’s quite the speculation . I’ve been noticing building expectations for another cold and snowy winter. Not only is Snowmaggedon still fairly fresh in memories, we had a rather cool summer (by my count only one day above 90°, we average 5+ days each summer) and forecasts now are talking about snow this weekend across high terrain over the Western US and Canada. Highs near Pullman and Spokane may struggle to reach mid 40’s this weekend… a ~20° drop from mid-week. Brr! for late September. But can the recent past and present paint us a good picture of what to expect for the upcoming fall/winter storm season? Most people realize weather forecasting out more than a few days seems to be a total crapshoot. Sorry, weather modeling hasn’t come that far (yet). Here was NOAA’s 90-day outlook as of mid-November last year. As seen below, they were predicting above average temperatures (Reds) last winter. We all know how last F...