Bitter cold temperatures have arrived in Virginia, but the frigid weather doesn’t necessarily translate to snow, according to a winter outlook released in October.
While the song “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” is certainly fitting right now, “Walking in a Winter Wonderland” may not be in the cards anytime soon.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration expects a mild, dry winter for the mid-Atlantic area, but that prediction is at odds with what some local meteorologists and forecasters believe is in store for the state.
Because the region has minimal annual snowfall, a few storms can push snow totals for the region well beyond the seasonal average.
Drew Ellis, a professor in Virginia Tech’s Department of Geography, said the NOAA forecast nationally is a La Niña forecast – directly out of the El Niño – Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, playbook.
“Winter season forecasts are almost entirely predicated on the ENSO phase, with some signal of temperature and precipitation for portions of the country during an El Niño or La Niña year.
“For a La Niña year, we are largely between a climatological signal of wetter than normal to the northwest (Great Lakes region) and drier than normal to the south (near the Gulf Coast). So, precipitation becomes a problematic forecast for our region during a La Niña year.
“Also, problematic this year is that La Niña is struggling to evolve and will likely be weak/marginal.
The latest forecast, Ellis said, gives a greater than 70 percent chance of weak La Niña conditions for December through March. The NOAA forecast predicts a return to neutral conditions in late spring or early summer.
La Niña conditions should emerge within the next month, Ellis said.
“If La Niña fails to materialize, the forecast for the winter season in the mid-Atlantic would be even less certain than it is already,” Ellis said. “By that point, there is greater benefit of simply relying on shorter-term forecasting than seasonal forecasting.”
The reality, according to Ellis, is that seasonal forecasting is fairly unreliable in Virginia. There is some predictability in other regions but a disagreement from experts on snowfall expectations is “the norm for our region rather than the exception.”
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Crystal Graham
