Winter outlook, government's turn
Federal forecasters: Wetter-than-normal winter favored; temperature a coin-flip.
Our best guess is that not many folks in the Philadelphia region will be building their winter plans around the Climate Prediction Center's seasonal outlook.
As usual, it is spare in detail, compared with those posted by private forecasters, showing probabilities in three categories – "above normal," "below normal," and "equal chances" (EC) – over extensive areas of the country.
It has more to say about drought-stricken California (things should get a little better) and northern New England (a mild winter might be in the offing).
Our region is in the EC region for temperatures. As for precipitation, the forecasters say that among the three possibilities, the highest probabilities would favor above-normal precipitation from Dec. 1 through Feb. 28.
Fans of snow will notice that the wet zone constitutes an intriguing stripe along the coast, suggesting a potential for nor'easters.
In the prognostic discussion, the forecasters continue to bank on the development of El Nino, that anomalous warming of surface waters in the tropical Pacific that can energize U.S. storm tracks.
However, as we've observed, El Nino conditions have been slow to take hold and remain a wild card.
What we like about the government's is that it is far and away the most-objective of all the seasonal outlooks.
"EC" means that the evidence simply isn't there to make a call, and the EC zones cover about half the country for both precipitation and temperature.
We doubt that an EC designation would be a magnet for web traffic.
If the outlook doesn't say a whole lot to all those folks in EC-land, in all honesty that's probably about as much as can be said, given the state of the science.