IF WINTER WERE BASED ON EL NINO ALONE

Written by: Bob Metcalfe

Will we be walking through tunnels of snow like the one at left this winter? I strongly doubt that. It's suicide for a meteorologist to "guarantee" anything, but no, we won't see 7 feet of snow at any one point this winter.

The stance going into the winter season is that we will be under the influence of a weak to moderate El Nino. We've described what that means before, but lets just say they typically mean a little more snow and a milder winter for our area, USUALLY (not always).

Now this forecast is NOT our official winter forecast, I am simply, for amusement's sake, making a comparison to a year with a similar El Nino strength.

For that, we go back to the 2004-2005 winter. The El Nino readings for the most 4 recent months have been nearly IDENTICAL from then to now. In fact, if the forecast numbers verify, we'll continue to be very in line with '04-'05. So what did that winter produce here in Rochester:

113.6 total inches of snow for the season. That's a little bit above normal, but not by much. Our snowiest month was January, with 49.7" of snow, making it the fourth snowiest January on record. It is interesting to note that the snow that month didn't come from one HUGE storm, rather a bunch of several inch days, with the 22 and 23 bringing 8"+ each day. The rest of the months really weren't that impressive.

So, if El Nino was the ONLY factor in a forecast, which is obviously far from the truth, and IF matching El Nino numbers produced the exact same results every time they occurred, one would conclude that just over 100" of snow should be expected. Again I want to reiterate that this is NOT a good way to forecast. We do however take a lot from this type of data and factor it into our forecasts. El Nino/La Nina episodes do have a measurable impact on our winter outcomes here in western New York.

On that note, we want to invite you to watch our "Winter Ready" weather special on News8 this Saturday at 7pm. You can be sure that we'll have our OFFICIAL winter forecast in there, along with a whole bunch of other cool stuff.