I promised several readers last week that I would write about winter.
There is nothing like a heat wave to make you dream of crisp cool winter days and quiet drifts of snow. (Ok, Californians, I know you dream of 72˚ weather and enough rain that you don’t have to water the still blossoming garden.)
If, as most climate experts expect, we have an El Niño, winter might be a bit weird.
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Click to expand. Satellite pictures show how El Niños develop. SOURCE: NOAA.
Basically, an El Niño (Spanish for “Little Boy) occurs when the Tropical Pacific is unusually warm, more than 0.5˚C or 0.9˚F hotter than average. It heats the air above it, which allows the atmosphere to hold more moisture. Air pressure changes and that changes wind patterns. The unusual warmth lasts for months. Since the warm area is hundreds of thousands of square miles in size, it usually changes weather around the Pacific Rim and throughout the tropics.
El Niños move. The warmer water drifts east, while new warm water wells up in the center of the Pacific. Eventually the warm water crashes into the west coast of South America, around Ecuador. From there, it drifts north along the West Coast until it is off the coast of California. Warmth shifts north in the West and winds carry it inland. Meanwhile, the Pacific jetstream is shifted north and the southern tier of states wallow in water. (Good news for Texas!)
Click to expand. El Niños bring warmer weather north and cooler weather south. SOURCE: NOAA.
El Niños normally make the northern states and Canada warmer and the southern states and Mexico wetter. Confusing, isn’t it!
Unfortunately, for my Ohio readers, parts of the Midwest have less snow, which means things stay dry.
Of course, El Niño isn’t the only pattern that shapes winter. If an Arctic Oscillation is in a negative mood, it will be cold. The Arctic Oscillation is the king of winter, and a “little boy” cannot fight a king.
So, if you love shoveling snow off your sidewalks, this winter may disappoint you. If you like cool but not frigid weather, El Niño may be your best friend.
James J. Garriss
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That sounds like a pleasant change from the current heat and dry weather.
I love a cold December. As long as I get my wonderful beautiful snowy December morning then my winter is all set :) I remember when I was little and i wake up on Christmas morning and I see a frosty, icy winter wonderland outside and id just have that smile on my face when it snowed. Last December was absolutely horrible. It was upsetting and my kids couldnt take time and enjoy the gift of winter time. As long as December 2012 is colder! I want to go back to the past when you came inside and had a mug of hot chocolate after building a snowman and having a snowball fight with my brother! That was good times. Winter brings back alot more memories, i hope this year is a differnt story. Another 2009-10 is what im hoping for! In Virginia you will rarely see a temperature above 60 degrees in the winter, and i want it to stay that way! no more allergies in February
I'm afraid you probably won't see a winter like 2009 - 2012. That year the Arctic Oscillation went crazy and was incredibly negative. It caused some record cold and snow!
I'm afraid you probably won't see a winter like 2009 - 2012. That year the Arctic Oscillation went crazy and was incredibly negative. It caused some record cold and snow!
Last winter was hardly what I could call "winter" here in Arkansas. I didn't even use one tank of gas for heating, which is good, but---last summer started early and was so hot and dry, I spent the whole summer inside under the air conditioning. The two winters before that were exceptionally cold, as everyone knows. The iguanas were falling out of the trees in Florida, and the manatees were suffering and looking for warmer water. One found its way up the Mississippi to a waste water outlet that was warmer than the surrounding waters. Now, that seemed like an indication of pole shift. NASA has just come out with something interesting about the space climate and what is happening on the Sun and with the planets as we pass through a region of cosmic clouds, not known before this. I really believe there is some connection. Nothing would surprise me anymore. I like my winters a little bit on the wet and warm side, with at least one nice snow. :)
The sun is doing some really crazy stuff. I love writing about "space weather" as well as what we have here in the US and Canada.
Several years ago we had way too much snow, the kids missed almost three weeks of school. Another year we had ice storms all winter. This past winter lasted for 4 days in November. I'm ready for some normalcy, already. Normal for northern Arkansas; rain starts around Halloween, cold snap around Thanksgiving, 2 or three snows around Christmas, warm a little in January, first of February get more snow (not ice or tornadoes again, Mother Nature, do you hear me?), then snow showers until the middle of March, then slooooowly warming until about the middle of May. Had I been more energetic I could have planted my garden in January, we were hitting upper 70's by then! Ready for it to get back to the way it's supposed to be!
I've been told by some experts that a long-term weather pattern, called the PDO has shifted, meaning we are in for a new "normal". If they are right, we are looking at weather more like what we had in the 1950s rather than what we had in the 1980s and 1990s.
im gonna have to give up on a winter in the southeast arent i? In North Carolina last winter was unacceptable!! We had an inch of snow last winter. 1 inch?? If we dont get more snow and cold this year then we could be looking at another disaster. I understand.. warm winter days may feel good, but the effects of them are very bad. Our summer is feeding off of our warm, dry winter. If you want water to drink and wet conditions, you need higher snow pack in winter! I miss the winters i once loved and we looked foward to sitting at the fireplace, enjoying a nice, cold Christmas day. We had plenty of that before 2011-12 but non existant winters are probably going to happen for now on, right?
I'm jealous that you got an inch of snow. I'm in South Carolina and we got none. Yes, thats right, zero. I had my windows open last winter some days and wore flip flops to work most of the time. I just want it to snow. I'm not asking for much.
