Forget last winter, cold, snowy winter forecasted for region
Snowplows and backhoes work to clear the lot at the Uniontown Shopping Center on Morgantown Street in this January file photo.
Kelly Tunney | Herald-Standard
Forecasters say snow is on the way but not likely to make an impact until January or February.
The southwestern Pennsylvania region had a small taste of winter over the weekend with snow flurries and seasonably chilly winds with the mountain accumulating about an inch of snow.
But according to a local weather enthusiast, the snow came during what was forecast to be a warm and mild November, and will return, with frigid temperatures, in the new year.
“There was a general consensus with long-range forecasts that November would be mild, while December would be a transitional month,” said Jack Hughes. “January and February would likely be cold and snowy.”
Known by many for years as the “mountain weather observer,” Hughes noted that there’s a chance that a cooling pattern known as La Niña will play a role in this year’s winter weather.
According to forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center, La Nina will make an appearance this year, developing in late fall or early December.
“La Nina favors drier, warmer winters in the southern U.S. and wetter, cooler conditions in the northern U.S.,” according to the prediction center. “If La Niña conditions materialize, forecasters say it should be weak and potentially short-lived.”
For more than a year, the “male” weather pattern counterpart, El Niño, brought warmer than average temperatures and wreaked havoc on many forecasts, including the age-old prognostication from the Farmer’s Almanac.
“As we suggested in 2015, an El Niño could, and did, throw a monkey-wrench in our forecast,” said Caleb Weatherbee in the 2017 edition of the Farmer’s Almanac. The late January 2016 snowstorm, for instance, was forecast as a “coast-hugging storm that would bring copious snow changing to rain.”
Due to El Niño’s inevitable pattern shifting, however, the storm did occur, but instead dumped record-setting amounts of snow on the East Coast.
“El Niño is gone, but there is a chance for El Niño’s tempestuous little sister, La Nina, to develop by fall,” Weatherbee said, adding that the cooler sea surface temperatures brought on by La Niña magnifies the usual weather conditions.
Therefore, Hughes said, we should anticipate a blustery January and February.
“We’re not going to have a winter like last year,” Hughes said. “But we’re also not going to return to the polar vortex like we did several years ago with intense and prolonged cold.”
Weatherbee, however, said that regardless of the La Niña weather pattern influence, they are forecasting a “colder-than-normal winter for two-thirds of the nation.”
He said that could mean “exceptionally cold, if not downright frigid weather will predominate over areas” including our region.
Forecasters with the Farmer’s Almanac also call for a frigid February with “ambient air temperatures as low as 40 degrees below zero.”
Mid-February is also being red-flagged for the potential for a small, yet intense storm to develop and deliver significant snowfall, they said.
As for now, Hughes said we’re lucky to have had our mild late-fall weather.
“There have been a lot of sunny days. Many trees, at least in the urban corridor, are still green or exuding tremendous color,” Hughes said. “We have not had a snow yet, even though we’re nearing the end of November.”
According to the National Weather Service’s monthly Pittsburgh summary, the average amount of snowfall in October is .4 inches. Snowfall averages for November are 2.0 inches.