MAINE, USA — Question: What do you think of the winter folklore and theories? Are we going to have a 'wicked hahd wintah, Bub'? From: Linda
I've heard about the woolly bear caterpillar, acorns and squirrels, but to be honest, they're only as accurate as the Groundhog.
But this is the time of year -- late October into early November -- that we can start to look at weather trends and patterns to see what we may be in for come winter.
In the weather world, winter is considered the months of December, January and February. Obviously, March and April can be quite wintry in our part of the world, too.
I'm not a long-range forecaster by trade, so I usually defer to the experts in these cases.
NOAA's winter outlook, released last week, says this winter's outlook is a bit of a toss up.
Temperature-wise, they are confident we'll be above average here in New England. But considering 6 of the last 10 winters have, on average, been above normal... that's not too hard of a stance to take. Most of those winters have included shots of extreme cold too, despite ending up above average.
Precipitation is where there are the most questions right now. ENSO, or the El Nino Southern Oscillation, is in a neutral phase -- neither El Nino or La Nina. Both of those can correlate to weather patterns and storm tracks here in the United States. When there's no strong signal, it's more likely other short-term factors and oscillations will impact the weather, impossible to project months in advance.
So, the bottom line is NOAA suggests we're in for a bumpy ride with big temperature swings, and precipitation could end up on either side of average.
Disappointed in that answer? Well, unlike private weather firms or the Almanac that will take a stance even if there's no solid science pointing to that conclusion, NOAA's approach is to focus on "what they know" or, at least what they think will happen.
We'll just have to see how it turns out.
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