Warm winter forecast
Commercial service says mild December and January.
Warm winter forecast
As we reported, Accu-Weather has weighed in with a call for a snowier-than-normal winter, now comes a second opinion.
WSI Corp., a Massachusetts outfit that supplies forecasts for energy interests, sees a warm December and January in Philly and most of the East.
The would-be El Nino event, the above-normal warming of waters in the tropical Pacific, isn't happening, says WSI meteorologist Todd Crawford.
Crawford thinks the defining feature will be Alaskan high pressure that will drive cold air into the Pacific Northwest.
Meanwhile, the East, except for the Southeast, generally would benefit from a warmer southerly flow.
The wild car in all this again would be atmospheric patterns in the North Altantic. Historic North Atlantic blocking led to the heavy snows of the 2009-10 and 2010-11 winters.
Last year, that blocking was scarce, and Crawford suspects that conditions might be similar this winter.
Unfortunately for the people who make a living from long-range outlooks, those North Atlantic patterns aren't predictable beyond several days.
And, of course, we don't have to caution attentive readers that seasonal forecasting remains a primitive art, relative to the short-term forecasting.
The Tonner's not taking any chances. The Tonner has a beer truck scheduled to roll up to the Tonner bunker in a week. When the ice age hits, the Tonner's going to be loaded up with Genny Cream Ale and the good times will be rolling.— hunglikeaton- Careful that your beer truck is not taken out by the "wild car" mentioned in paragraph 6.— FairmountFrank
- I like that idea. The Tonner again has made a great call.— UnaBlogger
- Cant wait to brush the snow off my truck knuts to show everyone how much balls I have. What? no, Im not compensating.
-not bob levy— remyy - WTF is the 'The Tonner' ? I always see it mentioned in comments and I have no idea what it means.— Bradley85
- Bradley. Our esteemed commenter is referring to himself (hunglikeaton) in the third person and I welcome his updates, opinions and advice.— Roger Podacter
Tony Wood has been writing about the atmosphere for The Inquirer for 26 years. E-mail Tony here. And read all his columns here.
