 For most of the nation, the National Oceanic Atmospheric
Administration predicts equal chances for unusual warmth, cold,
snow, rain and even average weather. That's because of an
absence of certain global weather factors, like El Nino — a
warming of the central Pacific that affects temperatures and
rainfall worldwide NOAA's Mike Halpert said Thursday that the
winter isn't likely to be too memorable or unusual, except in
the South where drought should deepen in the southwest and
develop in the southeast.
Forecasters expect unusual warmth from Arizona to Alabama and
also in New England. The extreme U.S. north, around the Dakotas,
is likely to be colder than normal.
Just because forecasters are predicting equal chances for
nearly everything, that doesn't mean it has to be a normal year,
said Halpert, acting director of NOAA's Climate Prediction
Center in College Park, Md. It just means the large-scale
climate factors that forecasters use, such as El Nino, aren't
giving them strong signals or patterns, he said.
But extremes tend to happen with El Ninos, so Halpert added,
"we're probably more likely to see something more benign" for
the winter.
And the winter weather is likely to change more from week to
week, rather than persisting heavy cold and snowy or mild for
weeks on end, Halpert said.
NOAA's forecast doesn't look for individual blizzards or
events, just averages. So a winter that doesn't look extreme
doesn't mean it will be free of snowstorms, Halpert said. He
said residents in snow-prone areas shouldn't put away their snow
shovels.
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And in places like the mid-Atlantic, where the national's capital
has had less than 5 inches of snow for two years, the odds are
against the snow-drought continuing for a third year, Halpert said.
Private weather forecast companies also cited mixed and lack of
signals in their forecasts, which ranged from warm to cold.
The Weather Channel sees a winter that's warmer than normal for
the coastal Northeast and mid-Atlantic, the South, the West and much
of the lower Midwest. The country's northernmost states should be a
bit cooler than normal, the company forecasts
Accuweather sees a late start to winter in the East, near record
warmth in the South, but plenty of snow and extreme cold in the
North, upper Midwest, Northwest and the Rockies. Weather Bell
Analytics sees a colder and snowier winter for much of the country,
centered around the nation's heartland.
___
Online:
NOAA's winter forecast:
http://1.usa.gov/IisDDt
[Associated
Press; SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer]
Seth Borenstein be
followed at
http://twitter.com/borenbears.
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