On Wednesday evening I participated in a winter wether webinar with AccuWeather, Senior Expert Meteorologist, Henry Margusity. During the session we discussed this upcoming winter and what we might expect.

Bob Long at the AccuWeather winter weather webinar.

To start, this is going to be a tough forecast.  Long-range forecasters like to look at the past and find years that had similar patterns to the current and then see what happened, then base a forecast off of that.  Well, this year has been unique. In fact, some forecasters say that they can't really find anything that matchs up to the extreme weather we have had this year...for example the October snowstorm along the east coast and in New England and now the unusually warm November.

A few months back we were looking for the cold air to drop into the region right around Thanksgiving and then hang out for several months. It was going to be really cold for a long period of time. It was also going to be quite a snowy winter. That thought seems to have changed a bit. It looks now like the colder air will not be coming in until early to mid December. Margusity says, however, not to expect the cold air to drop in and stay.  He also thinks our area will get some good lake effect snows, but that whether it be lake effect or synoptic, the snow will be "here today" and then "gone in a day or two."  In other words, it will get cold and snow and then warm up a few days later causing the snow to melt. He thinks we could still have normal to slightly above normal snowfall in NE Ohio, but it will have to begin by mid-December for that to happen and that's not a certainty.

As for the usual winter clippers and other synoptic storms, expect most of the snowstorm activity to be in the western Great Lakes, perhaps even west of Chicago and along the east coast.

When it is all over, Margusity says that the record books may show that we had a fairly hard winter, but emotionally - because of the ups and downs - we will likely be saying, "You know, the winter really wasn't that bad."

So, there you have it.  I caution you however, this has been a strange year weatherwise, and you can't rule out anything during the next several months.

Up and Down...and, Up and Down...

Temperatures this week are going to be fluctuating a lot again.  Similar to last week, we will start off mild and then turn colder mid-week followed by a slight warmup for next weekend.
Thanksgiving week is still a bit up in the air at present. The computers are giving us mixed messages. We could get a hefty shot of cold air surging into the lower lakes around the holiday, or things could stay the way they have been. It looks like any "permanent" push of cold air, though, is still a ways off.