El Niño is going very strong in the eastern Pacific and it appears that it’s already impacting our weather and meteorological winter hasn’t even begun. It’s been a rather lackluster start to our snow season. Just by looking at the temperature patterns this November compared to last it looks very much like an El Niño set up:
November this year, on a North America-wide basis is 1.8 deg C (3.2 deg F) warmer, which is huge considering we’re talking about the continent as whole.
November is typically when the snow machine starts to crank up in Minnesota, especially north but not so this year. Take a look at some select stations snowfall for November (left) compared to normal (right):
0.4” / 6.7” - Twin Cities
0.8” / 13.6” - Duluth
3.0” / 12.2” - International Falls
0.2” / 6.8” - Fargo/Moorhead
That’s right, places like International Falls and Duluth should see a cool foot of snow through the month. Even in the Twin Cities we should be measuring at least several inches of snow through the month (though here usually it melts given the early time of the season).
It’s been so eerily quiet that October snowfall has outpaced November, except in International Falls. In the Twin Cities, Octobers have been snowier than Novembers only 10 other times in 140 years.
Comparing total snowfall for the season this year to last shows yet more contrast, especially for northern Minnesota.
The problem isn’t just a lack of consistent cold air though, we’ve been completely out of the storm track. We’ve seen just 0.04” of precipitation compared to a normal of 1.42”. While September and October brought incredible rains, it’s as though the faucet was just turned off come November.
With all that in mind, what might December bring?
The North American Multi Model Ensembles (models) show a clear warm bias for December as do all but one other model. Taking that into account, along with a strong El Niño, there’s no reason to think December won’t be warmer than normal.
BUT, even in a mild winter it’s still usually cold enough to snow versus rain in these parts. Last winter was a good case example in that. December was the only colder than normal month. January was VERY mild and February was about one degree above normal. We had our third snowiest winter on record in the Twin Cities.
The models are in pretty good agreement on below normal snowfall for December but necessarily a snow ‘drought.’
Normal snowfall for the Twin Cities in December is 11.8 inches and for Duluth it’s 18.5 inches. The model consensus is about 25% less snow than normal for the Twin Cities but for Duluth just about half the normal snowfall.
This weekend is our first test of any possible change in our pattern. A storm is shaping up for somewhere in the upper Midwest. While it’s no slam dunk, it’s encouraging to at least see Minnesota closer to the storm track and some activity.
As usual, only time will tell, but if you heard about a warm, El Niño winter and thought ‘so much for a White Christmas’ it’s definitely too early to count it out yet.
Commentaires