News - Blogs - Your winter outlook warm and dry maybe

Your winter outlook: warm and dry, maybe?
Published: 10/22/2012 2:05 PM
Last Modified: 10/22/2012 2:34 PM

Elisha Green, of Tulsa, but who grew up in Chicago, clears snow from her windshield, near Country Club Drive and West Edison Street, amidst cold and snowy conditions in Owen Park, on Monday, Feb. 13, 2012. CORY YOUNG/Tulsa World

I saw a commercial this morning with someone talking about layaway or retail or something with snow falling in the background and jingle bells ringing gleefully. It was a little shocking to see the snow considering it’s as muggy as May out there right now. But the fact that Christmas commercials come before Halloween these days isn’t that surprising anymore.

The commercial had snow, but according to the 2012-2013 Winter Outlook from NOAA, the most snow we see here in northeast Oklahoma may be on those commercials.

Released last week, the outlook says odds are in favor of a warmer-than-average winter season for Oklahoma, as well as the entire western half of the country, from the Mississippi River to the Sierra Nevada range.

The precipitation outlook for Oklahoma says there are equal chances for above-, near-, or below-normal precipitation. Considering much of the state is still experiencing crippling drought, a little break would have been nice here.

You can see the rest of the country in the maps below, both from NOAA.

Here are temps

And here's precipitation

What’s the reason for the season? El Niño, or lack thereof.

The Pacific waters off the west coast of South America were expected to warm into El Niño status from the last two years of La Niña, but the time that was supposed to happen has come and gone and the waters have entered more neutral conditions. An El Niño is still possible, but the Climate Prediction Center has reduced the chances.

And that’s not good for us weather-wise or anyone who tries to predict long-term climate trends. When El Niño or La Niña occurs, climate predictors have a better idea of what will happen. When there are neutral conditions in the Pacific, it makes their outlook less certain.

“This is one of the most challenging outlooks we’ve produced in recent years because El Niño decided not to show up as expected,” said Mike Halpert, deputy director of NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.

But just because we may trend toward a warm winter, that does not mean there is a zero chance of winter precipitation. As we will see this weekend, Oklahoma is primed to get hit by that cold Arctic air periodically and then trend back to the tropical temps and moisture from the Gulf. And things that can also influence our weather, like the Arctic Oscillation (a somewhat technical phenomenon explained eloquently here by our friends at the Oklahoma Climatological Survey).

This is another good opportunity to make sure everyone understands there is a difference between weather and climate, and how ridiculous it is to point to a freak snowstorm or a 115-degree as a sign of climate change. To borrow from Stephen Colbert, climate is the average of 1,000 weathers. What is happening today is weather, what happened this decade is climate.

After last winter’s disappointing snowfall total of 1.7 inches, I’d like a little more, like a happy medium between last winter and the winter before. But I know better to get too excited, so the commercials will have to do.

--Jerry Wofford

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Almanac

Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun
Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec

	Temperature		Precipitation
Date	High Temp	Low Temp	Total	Month to date	Historical average
1	44°	16°	0	0.00	0.05
2	59°	24°	0	0.00	0.11
3	57°	33°	0	0.00	0.16
4	68°	37°	Trace	0.00	0.21
5	69°	29°	0	0.00	0.26
6	66°	33°	0	0.00	0.32
7	59°	38°	0.05	0.05	0.38
8	51°	34°	0	0.05	0.44
9	44°	36°	0.01	0.06	0.51
10	62°	37°	0.07	0.13	0.57
11	54°	28°	0	0.13	0.64
12	44°	30°	0.25	0.38	0.70
13	55°	40°	0.01	0.39	0.76
14	°	°			0.83
15	°	°			0.89
16	°	°			0.95
17	°	°			1.02
18	°	°			1.09
19	°	°			1.16
20	°	°			1.23
21	°	°			1.31
22	°	°			1.38
23	°	°			1.46
24	°	°			1.53
25	°	°			1.61
26	°	°			1.69
27	°	°			1.77
28	°	°			1.85

TEMPERATURE

RAINFALL

SNOWFALL

Weather World

Follow Jerry Wofford on Twitter for updates during severe weather conditions.

Tulsa weather milestones of 2013 (as of Feb. 12)

Highest temperature: 70 on Jan. 11 (Record: 115 on Aug. 15, 1936)
Lowest temperature: 15 on Jan. 16 (Record: Minus-16 on Jan. 22, 1930)
Hottest month (average): 40.5 degrees in January (Record: 91.7 degrees on July 1980)
Coldest month (average): 40. 5 degrees in January (Record: 21.7 in January 1918)
Most snowfall (day): 0.1 of an inch on Feb. 12(Record: 13.2 inches on Feb. 1, 2011)
Most snowfall (month): 0.1 of an inch in February(Record: 22.5 inches in February 2011)
Most rainfall (day): 0.91 of an inch on Jan. 29 (Record: 9.27 inches on May 26-27, 1984)
Most rainfall (month): 1.54 of an inch in January (Record: 18.18 inches on September 1971)
Highest wind speed: 30 mph on Jan. 30
Previous day with any rain: Feb. 12
Previous day with 1 inch or more of rain: Oct. 17, 2012
Previous day with any snow: Feb. 12
Previous day with freezing temperatures: Feb. 12
Read regular updates on Oklahoma's unpredictable weather and learn more about meteorology from the Tulsa office of the National Weather Service.

>> Visit the main weather page
>> Send us your weather photos
>> Meet the forecasters

Contributors
Staff Writer Althea Peterson started writing for the Tulsa World in March 2007 after previous stops at the Norman Transcript in 2006 and the Oklahoma Gazette in 2005. She followed her older brother from rural Wisconsin (with a public school that never seemed to call snow days) to the University of Oklahoma, but did not follow his pursuit to study meteorology. However, she tries to find as many opportunities to report on the weather as possible.

Staff Writer Jerry Wofford came to the Tulsa World in 2010 from The Manhattan Mercury in Manhattan, Kan. Originally from western Arkansas and a graduate of the University of Oklahoma, Jerry has lived in Tornado Alley his entire life and is one of those people who goes outside when the sirens go off.

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