Wow, what happened to 2016?
2017 will be upon us in just a couple of weeks. The official start of winter, Dec. 21, is walking up our front sidewalks and about to knock on our doors.
So, what will the winter of 2016-2017 look like?
Philadelphia’s TV weather personalities, NOAA’s Weather Prediction Center and even the venerable Old Farmer’s Almanac basically agree that the winter of 2016-2017 will be “normal,” or at least very close to it, in the Philadelphia/Jersey Shore region.
Of course normal is a relative term. This winter could seem like a lion to area residents, spoiled as they were by last winter, a lamb if ever there was one.
As Cecily Tynan of ABC 6 reminded us when she made her winter weather forecast back in November, the three-month period from December 2015 through February 2016 was the “third warmest ever” in Philadelphia. December temperatures were 13.7 degrees above normal. Glenn “Hurricane” Schwartz of NBC 10 said there were eight days with record high temps last December in the City of Brotherly Love.
To sample the latest Nobel Laureate in Literature, Bob Dylan, folks in Philly and Southern Ocean County don’t need a weatherman to know this December has been decidedly colder than last. But it isn’t record-breaking cold, just more “normal” than last year, something Tynan, Schwartz and CBS 3’s Kate Bilo and Katie Fehlinger predicted will continue.
“Overall, we are predicting a rather ‘normal’ winter for Philadelphia, with temperatures averaging near or slightly below normal and snowfall slightly above normal,” said Bilo and Fehlinger.
“It looks to be a rather typical winter but compared to last year …” said Tynan.
Schwartz said this winter will be “overall, colder and snowier” than last year but forecast “no monster snowstorms.”
“This winter will be a lot more like two years ago,” said Tynan, saying there would be a lot of smaller snowstorms instead of just one big storm like last year’s late-January storm.
So let’s get down to numbers, snowfall numbers to be exact:
Tynan is calling for 24 to 30 inches in Philly and 18 to 24 at the shore. Schwartz predicted 28 to 36 inches in his city and 17 inches in Atlantic City. The CBS 3 team said Philadelphia, where the average is 22.4 inches a winter, will see 24 to 30 inches in “small, frequent storms.” Bilo and Fehlinger didn’t make a snowfall prediction for the shore.
The TV weather folk looked at a number of factors while making their predictions. There is a weak La Nina developing in the Pacific, a far cry from last year’s very strong El Niño. That should indicate cooler temperatures in this area than found last year. And they noted the extremely heavy October snowfall in Siberia, which often translates to blasts of colder temperatures in the northern part of the U.S. during the winter.
On the other hand, the ocean temperatures off of the Atlantic coast are much warmer than usual. The warmer waters tend to attract storms from the south. So, you have moisture approaching from the south and cold from the north. Sounds like a recipe for snow, right?
Yes, but remember those warm sea temps. They will moderate the cold. That’s why Tynan and Schwartz called for less snow at the shore than in Philly. Indeed, Tynan warned of many “mixed-precipitation” events, with snow turning to rain.
The cold snaps originating in Siberia will, according to the Climate Prediction Center’s winter forecast released back in October, especially hit “the northern tier from Montana to western Michigan.” The CPC also suggested “wetter than normal conditions are most likely in the northern Rockies” and “around the Great Lakes.” Put those together and it might be a moneymaking winter for snowplow operators in those areas. The CPC also said “warmer than normal conditions are most likely across the Southern U.S.” and warned “drought will likely persist through the winter in many regions currently experiencing drought, including much of California and the Southwest” and added “drought is expected to persist and spread in the southeastern U.S. and develop in the southern Plains.”
Ah, that leaves the areas between the South and far North such as Southern Ocean County. The CPC played it down the middle, saying “the rest of the country falls into the ‘equal chance category, meaning that there is not a strong enough climate signal in these areas to shift the odds, so that they have an equal change for above-, near-, or below-normal temperatures and/or precipitation.”
That may be another way of saying “normal.”
The Old Farmer’s Almanac, which released its winter forecast in the summer, basically agreed with the CPC, calling for mild and dry weather in the South, cold and snowy conditions in the aforementioned “northern tier” and a rather mixed forecast for our region. That’s despite mixing in that publication’s rather weird elements into its forecast model:
“Solar Cycle 24, the smallest in more than 100 years, is well into its declining phase after reaching double peaks in late 2011 and early 2014. As solar activity continues to decline from these low peaks toward a minimum in early 2019, we expect temperatures in much of the nation to be much colder than last winter, but still above normal.”
There is one source that will make people who love harsh winters ecstatic and turn those folks who can’t stand winters fearful, the Old Farmer’s Almanac competitor, the Farmers’ Almanac.
“While last winter was a reprieve from shoveling and high fuel bills, the party is over,” reads the Farmers’ Almanac website. “According to the 2017 Farmers’ Almanac, ‘winter is back!’ The 2017 Farmers’ Almanac, which hit store shelves everywhere on August 15, 2016, forewarns that exceptionally cold, if not downright frigid, weather will predominate over parts of the Northern Plains, Great Lakes, Midwest, Ohio Valley, the Middle Atlantic, Northeast and New England this winter. Get the snow blowers ready in the East and umbrellas in the West! An active storm track will deliver above-normal precipitation to the Southeast, Northeast and New England states throughout most of the winter.”
Indeed the Farmers’ Almanac map has all of New Jersey in an “Ice Cold & Snow Filled” zone!
Of course it also has the Southeast as a “Penetrating Cold & Very Wet” zone, a polar opposite from the Climate Prediction Center’s forecast.
So the Farmers’ Almanac is swimming against the tide of professional meteorologists and even its competitor in making its widespread “winter is back!” prediction. Then again, how many professional pollsters had Donald Trump winning the 2016 presidential election?
— Rick Mellerup The SandPaper