Cold comfort
Some experts predict that El Nino may mean a kinder, gentler winter
here in Ohio
Monday was a beautiful fall day — plenty of sunshine, temps in the 70s. But winter’s bearing down on us. And you know what? It might not be that bad.
The National Weather Service and AccuWeather are both projecting a warmerthan-average winter — December through February — with below-average snowfall. But another outfit said it could get dicier later in the winter.
You can thank a strong El Nino brewing in the Pacific Ocean that will peak in late fall and early winter for what is shaping up as a milderthan-average season, said Mike Kurz, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Wilmington, Ohio.
That means the southern jet stream should be more dominant than the northern jet stream. That means Arctic air masses will be less
frequent, said Paul Pastelok, senior meteorologist for AccuWeather in State College, Pa.
“Overall, I don’t think it’s going to be as severe in the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes region compared to other winters,” Pastelok said.
That would be a relief to central Ohioans worn out by the past two winters. Last winter’s average temperature from December through February in Columbus was 27.1 degrees, compared with the normal average of 32, and snowfall during that time was 23.9 inches, compared with a normal of 20.3.
Temperatures were below normal on 52 days between Dec. 20, 2014, and March 19 this year, including 27 strung through February and early March.
El Nino is a periodic warming of the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean that affects weather patterns in North America.
The last strong El Nino winter was in 1997-98, Kurz said. From December through February of that winter, the average temperature was 37.5 degrees, with just 6.3 inches of snow.
Will we get something similar this winter?
“No two El Nino winters are exactly alike,” Kurz said. “It depends on how it all plays out. There could be some significant winter storms.”
One forecaster, Joseph D’Aleo, chief meteorologist of WeatherBELL Analytics, a New York City-based company, says the jetstream boundary might begin to shift starting in January, with February our coldest winter month and central Ohio becoming more vulnerable to snow.
“Depending how quickly it shifts, (the Columbus area) could end up with above-normal snowfall,” D’Aleo said.
WeatherBELL uses slightly different tools than other national forecasters, he said. “We have our own models,” he said. The company provides information to meteorologists, energy providers and companies such as Wal-Mart and Cargill, the agriculture company.
“It will be another interesting winter.”
And then there’s this from the Old Farmer’s Almanac: Winter will be colder and slightly drier than normal, but with above-average snowfall, in the Ohio Valley region. The coldest period, according to the Almanac, will be in mid-to-late January. The snowiest time will be in “early-to-mid and mid-to-late December, February and March.”
That would mean just about any times those months.
Nationally, El Nino is expected to spawn a rainy winter in California, potentially easing the state’s punishing drought.
Meteorologists said in a report last week that the already strong El Nino has a 95 percent chance of lasting through the winter before weakening.
“This is as close as you’re going to get to a sure thing,” said Bill Patzert, a climatologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., calling this El Nino “too big to fail.”
“In the abstract,” he said, “El Nino seems like our savior.” But if floods and mudslides develop, it’s “not going to look like the great wet hope charging across the landscape on a white horse.”
Information from the Associated Press was included in this story.