The 2023-2024 winter weather outlook for each region of the U.S.

It's the podcast many of you have likely been waiting for, the 2023-2024 winter outlook! With fall leaves changing throughout the country and days getting shorter in a hurry, it's time to talk about what winter is looking like. Mostly mild or unusually cold? Mainly dry or extra snowy? And how will it vary across the country?
Ken Elliott, Senior Meteorologist at WeatherWorks, Inc in New Jersey, breaks down what to expect in the Northeast (21:28), Southeast (25:23), Midwest (29:55) and West (35:17). Plus, he offers his thoughts on whether parts of the country will see a White Christmas.
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About the Across the Sky podcast
The weekly weather podcast is hosted on a rotation by the Lee Weather team:
Matt Holiner of Lee Enterprises' Midwest group in Chicago, Kirsten Lang of the Tulsa World in Oklahoma, Joe Martucci of the Press of Atlantic City, N.J., and Sean Sublette of the Richmond Times-Dispatch in Virginia.

Episode transcript
Note: The following transcript was created by Headliner and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:
Winter Weather Outlook
Across the Sky podcast features the Elite Enterprises national Weather Podcast
Joe Martucci: You welcome everybody, to the across the sky podcast. Elite Enterprises national Weather Podcast. We are talking about a very, we'll say, emotional topic today, the 2023 2024 winter outlook. Lots of people love snow. People hate snow. A couple people are indifferent to snow. But I think, you know, everyone has an opinion on this topic. We're gonna talk about temperatures. We're going to talk about how cold. It's going to get. And we're going to have on Ken Elliott, senior Meteorologist for WeatherWorks, based in New Jersey, to talk about the entire country. We're going to break it down region by region. So let's welcome in my weather team here from across the sky, we have Sean Sublette over in Virginia, Matt Holiner in Chicagoland, and Kirsten Lang in Tulsa, Oklahoma. If you remember, we talked about our seasons when we talked about our ten things to know about fall. And I said fall is my least favorite. But what I failed to mention was if we included non-snowy winters, that would actually be my least favorite season. So it's really just the snow that's holding me to liking winter more than fall. So I'm going to toss it to Sean. Sean, if there was no snow in Virginia, does that change your opinion of winter or is snow? I don't even know. Are you a snow guy? I think you are.
Sean Sublette: Yeah. So, like last year, there was no snow. I mean, there was flat up, almost no snow. We had like one hour's worth of snow one morning and that was it. It coated the ground and it didn't even register a trace on the other side of town. But I, like a good snow. And when I say a good snow, I mean, all right, this is at least five or six inches where it matters. And you can do something with the snow. And we haven't had that in a while, a few years, across the entire statewide and that kind of thing. There's certainly little pockets that have done better than others. But I do like a good snow. And, as I think our guest will discuss, there are reasons for optimism for those, who've been aching for a little bit of snow. So that's where I'll kind of leave that.
Matt Holiner: Well, my opinion of winter has recently changed. No. When I was in the up, I grew up in San Antonio, but then I spent three years even farther south in the Rio Grande Valley. McAllen Brownsville, Texas. And winter is wonderful there. In fact, people from up north come to Deep South Texas to enjoy the winter.
Joe Martucci: Because you can have a lot of.
Matt Holiner: Days where it's in the and you, know, when it freezes, it can happen, but it's a big deal. Well, now I live in Chicago and it's a little bit colder. I like to do the comparison. I always tell people winter in Chicago is like summer in Texas. You spend as much time inside as it is. For me, it's more the cold than the snow. Now, my opinion on snow is I don't like too much of it. I like snow. I would like two big snows for the season, and that would be good for me. One early and maybe one I don't like. It too late again. You get tired of the cold once you get into February especially. It gets very old in the Midwest. So I would say, give me a December snow and late, January snow, and then I'm good. But two big snows, like, get it all out. It gets annoying when you have these, like, here's a couple of inches here and an inch there. Here’s another three inch snow, another one inch snow. It's like, give me six, seven, eight inches. Dump it all once. Get it, do that twice a year, and then I'm good with snow. So I like some snow, but not too much. And, I'm definitely not as big of a winter fan now, and I would have to say in Chicago, it is now my least favorite season.
Kirsten Lang: We sound like Goldilocks and the Three Bears. It's like, I want just right. Not a little bit of this, not too much of that. Just right. The problem with Tulsa, in this part of the country is that, unfortunately, what you get more often during the winter is cold rain. And there's nothing I hate more than cold.
Matt Holiner: Rain is the worst.
Kirsten Lang: Like, when it's like, 39 degrees and it's just raining. Like, what do you do with that? You can't enjoy it. It's not snowing. You can't go out there and just have a good time. It's not my favorite season, but that's okay.
Joe Martucci: Was it your least favorite season?
Kirsten Lang: No, I said summer was probably, but that's only recent because I have a bunch of little kids now, and I hate sweating, running around, chasing them.
Joe Martucci: Right.
Kirsten Lang: So winter would probably come second to least favorite.
Joe Martucci: Got it. Interesting. I just want to say for the record, I actually matt, to disagree with you a little bit there. I actually like snow late in the like, give me some March. Like, up until St. Patrick's Day, it can snow all at once. But right. As soon as St. Patrick's Day ends boom. It's got to start warming up, like, immediately.
Matt Holiner: See, even by beginning of March, for, like, if it's snowing, that means it's still cold. And I'm just so over the cold at the Midwest. By the time we're done with February, it's like, as soon as we hit March, it's like, all right, it's time to warm up. But unfortunately, March is still unpleasantly cold across much of the Midwest. You don't really break out of it until April. So if we can get lucky and have an above normal March as far as temperatures go and less snow, I'm all about it in the know.
Joe Martucci: Let's, give a plug here to what we'll be doing this winter. If you're listening, from your favorite local news website, one of us four will be covering your market when it does snow this winter. Whether you're in Oregon, Illinois, or in New York, New Jersey, wherever, keep throwing out the states, any of our Lee Enterprises properties will be covering when there is some decent snow to kind of give you those weather kind of alerts as we go into this winter here. So we'll call it an intro for now, and we'll get you into the meat and potatoes of the winter forecast. Here we'll talk with Ken Elliott from Weather. And now we are welcoming on for the 2023- 2024 winter outlook. Ken Elliott, he is senior meteorologist for WeatherWorks, friend of mine as well. Ken, thanks for being on the Cross Sky podcast. We appreciate it.
Ken Elliott: Always a pleasure. Joe, always happy to talk snow, winter, and, especially with somebody gosh, how far do we go back? Too many years to count.
Joe Martucci: Yeah, I think we're on double digits at this point. Or we're getting we're I think we're past double digits. Are we better double digits?
Ken Elliott: Yeah, I think so.
Joe Martucci: So we go way back. We share love for Jose Tejas, but we won't talk about that, in this podcast. You got to be in New Jersey to know. But we'll talk about the winter, ahead. First, you know, tell everybody what WeatherWorks does, and then my next question is what goes into the winter forecast in terms of, like, man hours and people, not so much the weather ingredients, but just the logistics of it.
Ken Elliott: WeatherWorks as a whole. We service all sorts of industries. Basically anyone that has a need for weather, we're always interested in helping somebody out at its core. Way back when, Frank Lombardo, founded, the company in 1986 that was just a couple of contractors and road departments and mostly radio stations. We have since morphed to plenty of road departments, large contractors, some national, and property managers. Still, municipalities are kind of the bread and butter of our tons of people that have needs for weather data. We're happy to provide it because obviously, we all know weather data is everywhere. It’s how you present it, how you interpret it, how you communicate it. And that's what we try to do to set us aside, aside from all the other apps and other data availability out there. And that's obviously, always, we were colleagues back in the day. Some of the stuff that we do now is almost unrecognizable in, a good way. I mean, the ideas are the same, but how we go about doing it is different. The volume of clients is greater. And it's cool for me because I've now been here for 17 years, knocking on my door number 18. And, just to see how far we've come, it's truly remarkable. And sometimes I forget that. And then when I talk to people that come on board, they're like, oh yeah, what you used to do. Then I go to talk about the stories and it's like, wow. It’s not embarrassing, but it just goes to show you how far, we've come as a company, how far the technologies come. And by the way, that's not just like computer models, that's just everything just big data. It's truly amazing. So we try to put the personal touch on weather data for whoever wants it. And that's the thing, we work with our clients to come up with the solutions. The second part of your question about, what goes in the winter forecast, at some level it's kind of ugly. We have a crack staff, led by Jim Sullivan, kyle Leahy and Kevin Winters. Those guys, they are like the crux of the operation. They know more about all of the alphabet soup of teleconnections, and all of their implications, better than anybody I know. Then we supplement that with data folks who say, okay, once our core of long range forecasters, establish what we think the patterns will be in the analogs and that kind of stuff, then we involve our data team. And our data team was probably, years ago, just like a part time operation, comparatively. Now we've got three or four guys that just, you can ask for anything and they'll get it for you and that's great. So data is at the heart of what we do. That’s kind of another one of our mantras, because we can have the best idea of the forecast. But what does that mean in terms of what can actually happen? What are the means? What are the extremes? If it's cold and snowy, well, okay, cold and snowy, that's fine. Does that relate to, in what's actually going to happen? How snowy can it get? Obviously in long range forecasting, forecasting extremes is kind of, questionable and you never feel good about doing it, but you want to know what they are. So again, the data people help out. Then we go back and say, okay, where does this make sense? And then the worst part is then we have to revisit it constantly, right? Because we start this process, at least informally in June, ah, very much internally, kind of talking about what we think is going to happen. Largely very big picture stuff like El Nino and La Nina. Then we keep on refining that. And it's kind of this delicate balance of watching things for change, but not want to deviate too far. So we put out our first initial outlook. I think it was, August 15, give or take. We had our core of what the analogues were. And I forget how many we dropped or added along the way, but that set that we start out with on August 15, is not what we finished with a couple of weeks ago. So it's kind of constantly evaluating it just like any forecast. Just like any forecast. Where do you go from it? And then it's also trying to get that down to how can we help our clients with this information? Just because we're saying cold and snowy, doesn't mean that the entire winter will be colder, snowy, or vice versa. What times are we looking at it's cold. What is cold? Right. On a national level, we're going with sneak preview kind of mild in parts of the north, but in the north it's cold. So even when it's mild, if I'm in the mid twenty, s five degrees above normal is well above normal, but that's still pretty darn cold. So it's kind of taking this scientific humble jumble at some level, the very beginning infancy, creating a forecast and then making that forecast helpful to our clients and the public at large.
Matt Holiner: And Ken, I think the public is starting to become more aware of the different computer models out there. And they hear the meteorologists talking about the terms of our short range models and our long range models, but they'll still think there's some conclusion in how long range those models are. Because especially the two long range models the public is probably most familiar with, the American GFS model and the European ECMWF model only go out 14 days. So what information, what data are you looking at when you're putting together a winter outlook for multiple months? Because you're not looking at the GFS, or European model that only go out 14 days. So what data are you looking at to make these forecasts?
Ken Elliott: Sure. Well, number one is not even model data. One of them is just straight up, what's El Nino doing now? Because that's the one teleconnection we probably have, the best feel for. It's also the most public visibility. So even people that really aren't hardcore into weather, they've probably heard about El Nino, especially I, forget the skit from SNL back in the 90s. So it's got some public awareness, not to mention the, Euro ensembles forecast El Nino. And there's also the IRI out of Columbia University that also has, their model plumes, for El Nino. So that's kind of where we start. Right. And it's very granular. And then we'll start saying, okay, these models say that El Niño or ENSO will do x, Y or Z. It almost doesn't matter what X, Y or Z is, but, okay, let's see where we've been, where we've come from, what the models thought along the way, and then we'll start, okay, good, that's fine to know. and again, still kind of almost acting in a vacuum of that, we'll start saying, all right, well, these prior years, we think, are kind of similar years is kind of a colloquial term internally. We kind of call them analog years. And those are like the bread and butter of the forecast. And then once we kind of get those, hint of what we think the analogs might be and again, like I mentioned before, that can shift with time. It's not all of a sudden going to be whatever we lock in initially is going to kind of make it. Then we say, okay, well, while the European and GFS models only go out two weeks or so, there also are the Euro weeklies and monthlies that we can look at, the canned sips and models along those lines. Again, they can be questionable at times, but it's part of the picture. And you're not necessarily looking to see, what kind of, temperatures it's forecasting. Any particular, certainly not a particular day, but even on a weaker monthly timescale, looking for trends, is it persistently cold? Has it been warm and turning colder? And then you kind of work from that. It’s, almost like sausage making at some level. You don't really necessarily want to know how the pieces go together, but it kind of works in the end. And that's the best answer I can give because, man, it can get ugly. And the other thing, too, that we're very, proud of WeatherWorks. It's not just like a one days approach. We lean more heavily on the analogs, than actual forecast models going out because there's just too much variability there. But it's also a team effort. So we talk about like computer model ensembles of various runs of different models. But we kind of use that at a personal level, too. It's not just one person making forecast. So we'll say, okay, I might think it's cold, somebody might say warm. And then we'll kind of talk it out and see, okay, what's most likely why do you say that? And kind of know human ensembles, which in my view, are probably the best ones.
Sean Sublette: Yeah, it's Sean here. And that's one of the things that I remember beating into my head as an undergrad, is that consensus is normally the best forecast. When you get all of your heads together, hopefully you get to something that's going to be the right answer or closest to the right answer. And I dabble in this just a little bit, mostly looking at analogs and looking, as we call the alphabet soups out there, things like the QBO, the PDO, all these things that are kind of beyond the scope of this particular podcast. But do you see, aside from ENSO any other kind of dominant influences? I think we all know the El Nino Southern Oscillation is kind of the big one. But when we look at some of these other recurring oscillations and changes and Indian Ocean dipole, all this stuff, are there any others that more recently the science has kind of suggested. This is one that we look at in addition to ENSO that plays a stronger role in how the winter is going to play out.
Ken Elliott: I think that probably depends upon who you talk to. And that's a very good question, by the way, because ENSO is not only the most widely known, it's the one that we've kind of been around the longest, we have the longer data sets. Most meteorologists even we've all heard along the way, we've all had it, even in school. Whereas a, lot of the students going through college now are learning a lot more about the alphabet soup than any of us probably ever did going along the way. And by the way, that's a good thing because, beyond El Nino, I didn't really know much. A little bit of NAO and whatnot. But in terms of which ones, can be more helpful, I think it kind of depends upon what kind of winter you're looking at, or any season for that matter. When, the ENSO signals, be it El Nino or La Nina, are particularly strong, usually it's kind of hard for other things to influence that. But when it might be more moderated, or when you're transitioning from one to the other, then that's when some of the, other you, I think you kind of hit on the two that are probably the most impactful the PDO and the QBO. But again, that's kind of in my view, anyway, and I'm sure there's other valid opinions on this, it's more of in the frame of reference as to what else might be going on. And sometimes we're taking fairly educated guesses at that. There’s all kinds of data out there, but especially when it comes to a lot of these, indices and alphabet soups, as we all call them, the really good data only goes back like 50 to 70 years, really. In the grand scheme of things, it's not that many, especially since we're kind of, in general, this kind of like, warming climate. I'll kind of stay out of the political aspects of that. But in general, it's just not as cold as it was ten or 20 years ago, whatever the reasons are, if it's short term, long term, or recurring, or going to go back, whatever. So looking at comparing something from like 1970 isn't even all that helpful in 2023. So I think depends upon where we're going, and what the overall idea is this year particularly. I think ENSO is kind of, the big game. I don't think there's really anything that's going to overcome it, at least on a seasonal scale. Maybe on a couple of weeks here or there. Maybe the PDO does something to over influence it. But overall, I'll put my money in ENSO for the time being.
Kirsten Lang: And Ken, could you kind of give us maybe just a little? It's a very broad general question, but just a little recap kind of on what last year's forecast was and then how it actually played out. How things went with that.
Ken Elliott: Yeah, sure. Last year's forecast was basically cold north central United States. So we'll say from the northern mountains of like Wyoming and Montana across into the Great Lakes and northernmost New England. A ah, fairly mild southern tier of the United States. Up into the east coast. The idea there was that the warmth would be dominant especially mid and late season. Which by and large was true, especially from an east coast perspective. And that the cold air would kind of spill over at times out of the upper plains and Great Lakes. From the snowfall kind of went in lockstep with that. The areas that were cold would do very well snowfall wise. So basically the Upper Plains, Upper Great Lakes, northern New England and even snow. Again, the forecast was for it to go pretty much down to the I-70 corridor pretty much across the country. But especially say Midwest Ohioish out towards Denver in terms of what actually almost the idea was great, but just a little bit off on the location. We would put like a place like Chicago for example, in the above normal snowfall. Well it didn't quite work out so well. It was further up into Wisconsin and Minnesota. They snowed plenty up there. Maiden was a little further north than we would have anticipated from a more east coast standpoint. We were kind of thinking it would be tough to get a lot of meaningful snow mid late year and that turned out to be true. But we thought December was going to do better than it did and we came pretty close. We got a nice cold shot deep trough just before Christmas. But it was transient. There was really no, I mean there was rain with it and a brief end of snow in places. It ended up being like a very large refreeze in certain cases in the mountains, like a flash freeze. But it didn't really pan out with the snow, especially in that December aspect. So we had the idea pretty good. Just some of the finer details were off by a little bit in terms of their specific location.
Joe Martucci: And a lot of the mid Atlantic even saw like near record low snow like here along the Jersey shore. We had near record low, actually record low down towards Cape May. But you're right, as it went later, it definitely was on the milder side here across the area. So good stuff so far.
Ken Elliott: Ken.
Joe Martucci: We're going to take a brief break and then the other side probably the time everybody listening here has been waiting for what Ken and WeatherWorks is thinking for the winter outlook for 2023 and 2024. You're listening to the across the sky podcast. Welcome back, everybody, to the across the sky podcast. The Enterprises National Weather Podcast. New episodes come out every Monday wherever you get your podcast and on your favorite local news website. We are back again with Ken Elliott, senior meteorologist at WeatherWorks in New Jersey, and we are talking about the winter outlook here and now is the mean, listen me as just a person in the public always gets excited about winter forecasts, let alone as someone as a meteorologist. So it's always a big moment when we get into winter forecast season. And Ken, what we're going to do is we're going to break this down region by region here for our listening audience here. So let's start off with maybe the area of the country that gets most emotional about snow. We'll say the I-95 corridor in the Northeast. I'll let you have at it, Ken.
Ken Elliott: Sure. And I say it's also usually the most interesting too, m a lot of variability year to year other parts of the country. A lot of times, especially in areas that snow frequently, the variability is less like in the Midwest and Plains, the snow floor and the snow ceiling are generally fairly accepted and you end up in fairly typical ranges on a lot. From a statistical standpoint, standard deviations of average snowfall are relatively low on the east coast, however, you either get it or you don't. And the extremes can be pretty extreme. This year, I think the folks that you go further south be the most interested because especially, and you alluded to it, know, Atlantic City, Cape May, and even going out towards know, DC, Baltimore. It was a struggle to snow and El Nino years, and I think this will be a good one, will keep a big subtropical jet stream a powerful one and a more important dominant one in play. So even if temperatures aren't all that cold at points, I do think that subtropical jet stream gets us at least a lot of players on the field. Will all those become snowstorms? Probably not, statistics would say otherwise. Even when it snows a lot in Baltimore and DC and Virginia probably have a good number of rain events in there too. But I think that subtropical jet will mean business at points. I think early season M might be a little touch and go, not looking for like a shutout completely, but it'll be tough, especially the further south again, where you'd expect it's just hard for Baltimore to snow in December, no matter how favorable the pattern is. I think you go through the later weeks of January into February. I think that's where the temperatures and the busy jet streaming are most favored to get you bigger storms there. A lot of our analog years had a lot of snow, varying degrees, but I hate to mention this too, but one of the analog was nine in 2010, and that was snowmageddon. So, again, I wouldn't dare forecast that. But I think that kind of gives you an idea that the upper end is in play here. In fact, in the Mid Atlantic, the firmer analogs, there's twice the likelihood of six inch plus events this year, compared to a regular year. So just that doesn't only takes one or two events in the Mid Atlantic to get you up to normal. Further north. Again, it's closer to average. Again, remember, averages get significantly higher once you start getting, up into New York City and beyond. So I think the storm track might end up being a little bit more mid Atlantic based than New England based, but New England will get it on it too. They're even going to try here a little bit in early to mid-November to get a little bit of snow. So we'll see how that goes, especially in the mountains. But again, not a shutout here by any stretch, even early in the season. I do think the best matching for cold and snow still does favor mid and late season, but more in line with what you'd ordinarily expect maybe a little bit below. Again, nothing too crazy, but certainly a lot more snow. What was had last year, because Boston was even below normal last year, i, think just a hair over 20 inches, we'll get a little more better distribution because it was only not too far away from Boston in those hills where there was like 80 plus. So there was really tight gradients up there. Hopefully a lot of that eases out and we'll see a lot more consistent snowfall this season.
Joe Martucci: Could we talk about March real quick, too? I think you alluded to it, but we're talking March always that wild card month anyway, right? Just what are your thoughts then?
Ken Elliott: Yeah, I think there's a decent chance for a little bit of a hangover early on, but I don't think it's one of these years where winter just refuses to yield. El Ninos, they just don't support a whole lot of, late season snow. So, especially once you start getting into areas that you would expect to have a hard time snowing in March. I think once you get to March 10 to 15th, it'll be tough not to say that it'll be easy in New England either, but it's easier there. But I wouldn't expect to be one of the seasons where we're sitting here March 27, worrying about a coastal snowstorm.
Sean Sublette: All right, so let's go down to the Middle Atlantic. And I'm thinking Virginia, and especially because we have ten different, organizations or properties here in Virginia, and I'm looking at moderate to strong and so years. And for most places there's less snow. But you see this little ribbon when you plot up the data of near or above normal snowfall, of all places, Virginia. So when you. Talk about the nine and ten analog. I'm like, yes, I hear exactly what you're talking about. So I'm kind of of that mindset where I've been telling people there'll be more than last year. But are you also of the mindset? And let's talk about the area from Virginia all the way to Texas as the Southeast. Because we know in a positive, so subtropical jet dominates here. So there's the possibility of more than average snow, in Virginia. But then how do you think that plays out in locations farther southward? I'm imagining snow really isn't an issue here, but do you still think it's cooler or wetter in these places from the Carolina down to Florida and westward toward, let's say, Oklahoma and Texas?
Ken Elliott: Indeed, cooler and wetter for sure. And that's basically a feedback on each other cooler because of the busier patterns, so it doesn't get to warm up as much. However, I don't dislike snow into places further into the south. I mean, I could see this being a decent year in the interior carolinas, ah, even down in the know, they will snow on occasion. They did a little bit one storm last year. I don't see why they couldn't do that again this year, again, very busy jet stream. It's not going to be a frequent occurrence by any stretch. But if there's a year to go above normal there, I kind of like, know we also kind of forget, that places like Arkansas, upper Mississippi, northern Alabama, they have sneaky elevations there. So it's not just like Gulf Coast Mobile, where maybe if they see a flake, that's like a big deal. But I could see some places that might average five to ten inches in the Deep South meeting or exceeding those numbers this year, just because there's going to be an above normal number of storms. And even if it's not cold, cold below normal in January is pretty cold. And that can get it done on one or two occasions. And I think it can kind of translate that further west too, out, towards Texas, Oklahoma, and even southern Kansas might not be quite as, with quite as much, confidence, I would say, in places like Virginia and maybe western Carolinas, but still, busy jet stream. I'll take the jet stream any day because unlike La Nina, where the northern jet stream is a little more dominant, le Neil is with that subtropical, jet stream, across the southern US. That comes north a little bit. A couple of times. That's all it takes. Especially in January and February.
Sean Sublette: Yeah, that's in my mind, too. Before I turn this over to Matt in the Midwest, one other question I've been wanting to ask you. I've been talking to a couple other people out there about this, but the idea that I kind of have in my head is that this is a kind of pattern developing for this winter that lends itself to one or maybe two blockbusters and that's kind of it. I'm not saying that's a done deal by any stretch, but do you think that this pattern also kind of lends itself to that situation, let's say from a Raleigh to a Richmond to a DC and to South Jersey? Do you think a little better than average odds of something like do?
Ken Elliott: You know, the analogs are the analogs and there's no perfect one. Obviously a perfect analog doesn't exist. It's the unicorn of the long range forecasting world. But a lot of the analogues did have like one to two. Further north would be more like three. But again, just one or two big storms that produces a snowfall. And especially when you start getting the areas we're talking about, average snowfall is not that high. So one storm can easily get you to normal. And anything above that, all of a sudden you're way above. So that's kind of also why normal snowfall bothers me. Just because in the mid-Atlantic and south it's just exactly just an average of extremes where you have four years out of 20 that it snowed. But you got like a 25 spot in there and all of a sudden it just kind of skews the average a little bit. So yeah, I do like the idea of one or two big storms most favored especially for the south, february is a little bit harder because you got better sun angle starts to warm up a little bit more. But later January 1, half of February, maybe we can go more into later February up into Virginia. But yeah, a lot of signs for one or two bigger storms and maybe more rainier kind of mixy events otherwise.
Matt Holiner: And Ken, I want to focus on the Midwest next and just looking back to last winter, it was an interesting winter in the Midwest because boy did we have a lot of systems. I mean there was a period where it was on a weekly basis, we had a low pressure system tracking across the Midwest, but it was also very interesting how these low pressure systems often took a very similar path. And while there were lots of places that definitely got in on the clouds and the wind and the ups and downs and the temperatures because of this similar path, there were places that definitely.
Joe Martucci: Got a lot of snow.
Matt Holiner: But then there was a sharp cutoff. And if you go from Chicago down to the south, a lot of people were wondering where is the snow? Because being in Chicago, it was not a particularly cold or snowy winter for us. But you go up into Wisconsin, even southern Wisconsin, it got way more snow.
Ken Elliott: Really.
Matt Holiner: There was almost a cut off on the Wisconsin Illinois border where there was just snow, rain, that good old snow rain line. So tons of snow in Minnesota as well, and Wisconsin, and even northern Iowa and northern Nebraska seeing more snow than southern Nebraska and southern Iowa. Of course, historically, that's the way it works, but it just seemed like it was even exaggerated, more so last year, where these systems kept taking a very similar path. but again, also because there were so many systems, it was also interesting, while there were lots of days with below normal high temperatures because of all the cloud cover at night, there were actually a lot of warm nights. So if you look at just the average temperature of the winter, it wasn't particularly cold in the Midwest because of all the cloud cover, there were a lot of nights that weren't as cold as normal. And above normal low temperatures was pretty common in the Midwest. So with all that said to kind of recap the Midwest, what are we looking at this year? Kind of looking at. We'll include North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, on over across Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. Just the Midwest. What are we looking at this one?
Ken Elliott: Sure. Overall, I would say temperature wise, normal to slightly above normal. I kind of alluded to that earlier, where normal in some of these places is just darn cold. So it's not to know, even if you're well above normal, you can't snow. You can and you will snow at some point, when your temperatures are that cold. Actually looking, I believe it was, fargo, the average high bottoms out at 23 degrees, in mid to late January. So even being ten above normal for a high still gets you into the low 30s, where obviously it easily can snow. As we found out last year, we snowed a lot above freezing on the east coast. So, with that said, I think that the StormTrack will be different this year. Whereas last year was kind of more one of those cutter kind of situations where it was putting the better snows. Like you said, it kind of happens a lot anyway, but more west based, maybe northern parts of the Rockies on into Minnesota, I think that'll be a little bit more shifted south this time, so the gradient probably reverses. We talked about this a little bit, a second ago with Sean, where it was more like the south that would have the busier subtropical jet, I think southern parts, the Midwest, that's kind of like the wild card area. Anywhere south of I-70, I think you can get in on those bigger storms. And again, might not be a whole heck of a lot of them, because they get a lot of suppression south, but you get these bigger storms and you can quickly add up. So places maybe like, maybe even Tulsa, but I'd feel even better St. Louis, Cincinnati, even if you want to include out into parts of, the, central and eastern great Lakes, like Pittsburgh, places like that. I could see a lot of variability where there's sharp cutoffs between a good amount of snow and more normal snow further north. And you kind of alluded to this last year and I could see this kind of the forecast kind of repeating itself. A lot of systems go by. The polar jet stream is not dominant, but it's not dead. And we looked at the analog years. Almost every one of them had greater than 20 or in most cases even 25 measurable snowfall days, which isn't that far below normal. Anyway, again, a lot, it's not going to be like it's quiet, but a lot of lighter, more nuisance y kind of snows. Snow showers. Maybe you get one or two better clippers in there too. But again, it's not going to be from a lack of frequency that the Midwest, doesn't get above normal snowfall. It'll be basically because lighter systems outnumber the wetter systems that will be more favored towards the south. What does all that mean? I could see a place, know, Chicago having similar to snow to Cincinnati, which ordinarily kind know, wouldn't see. I could see stuff like that happening this year. But again, frequency, I don't think that's going away. I could see this northern jet stream giving plenty of systems, not a lot of moisture with them, granted, but a lot of quarter, half inch, inch type systems instead of like three to sixes and that sort of thing. and to that end, I talked about it earlier, the Midwest snowfall variability is generally less anyway, Chicago getting and I forget what the exact number is, you probably know off the top of your head, but like low twenty s, I think in Chicago that's about as low as it can go. So I think you do better than that. Anyway, this year I think the east coast method applies. I think you get more how much more I think, depends upon can you cash in and get some three to six inch clippers versus the more disorganized snow showery ones.
Kirsten Lang: And Ken, can we talk a little too about the West Coast just kind of rounding this all out then and finishing up on that side of the country. What are they looking at this year?
Ken Elliott: Sure, West Coast will be a tail, will be a tale of two wests. Basically. This west to east gradient we're kind of looking at across most of the country kind of goes all the way out to the West Coast. So a lot of times we're looking at for the heavier snows to be up in the northwest. Well, since the southern jet stream will be the dominant one this year, I think places like the Southwest four, corners, sierra Nevada, Southern Rockies too, I think Denver, Colorado Springs somewhere. There's going to be a tight gradient between where it snows quite extensively. Then we start going a little bit lighter as we go, further north. And I also wouldn't be surprised if they do better earlier and middle this season. While other parts of the country probably are just starting to cool off a little bit more. And they might make trend a little bit warmer and less snowy with time. So I could see season more kind of front to middle loaded there with still plenty of moisture in that subtropical jet stream. So some of the Sierra Nevadas, which is actually good because they still need to replenish some of the water supplies out there. This will be a very busy jet stream. So plenty of mountain snow places even like Flagstaff, Arizona, could have sneaky high snowfall this year. You think of them as kind of being desertish, but less moisture. It's still cold, it's still a snow, and it can pile up pretty well further north. I think places like Spokane in the Northwest, Idaho. That's kind of the most interesting question to me because you can get snow there in less than ideal ways. And there's many times when that mean northern injection might be even a little bit too far north. So if that's the case, I could see them going, maybe a week or two at a time without a whole heck of a lot of any kind of precipitation. But I still think at times that's going to buckle. And I'd favor more December or January than February. I think it'll buckle at times. And they'll still get some snows as well. Maybe not quite as much as the ski resorts might want. But, I don't think, I think this could apply anywhere. I don't think there's really a shutout there either. Might be a little bit less frequent, might have some longer dry spells. but the Northwest, they'll see their snow either by hook or crook, just when the pattern relaxes a little bit, where that subtropical jet stream maybe goes more, say, in Northern and Central California than say, Southern California and going on in towards, the rest of the south, towards Texas.
Matt Holiner: And Ken, looking back again at last winter, and we talked about the epic snow that California got, do you think then there's kind of been a little bit of buz about could that happen again? What are your thoughts about a repeat of the epic snow season that they saw last season happening back to back years?
Ken Elliott: It very well could, and I think would be a tight gradient. There’ll be some place that might be more very Northern California and Oregon that get into that gradient. But, the Central and Southern California mountains, I think this is a very good year for them, because there's almost no way that it can't snow a lot. You got a subtropical jet stream that's it's going to move at times. Yeah. But it's going to be close enough by for a pretty long stretch. And it's hard for them not to be cold. The temperature anomalies down there. And this goes even all the way on to Texas. A lot of these times, these months were below normal. And all of them like 70, 80% of the time in the analog. So even when it's, quote unquote, mild or seasonable, with that subtropical jet stream not really going anywhere, this could be another battery year for those.
Joe Martucci: And Ken, let me ask you guys, do you guys do Alaska and Hawaii winter forecasting? And if you do, I mean, obviously Hawaii is not going to get much, but could you, like, maybe in 30 seconds talk to us about just rounding out the rest of the country there?
Ken Elliott: Yeah, we don't really do, Hawaii, but again, usually they'll find a way on those top peaks. They'll get snow at some point that'll.
Joe Martucci: Get a little bit.
Kirsten Lang: Sure.
Ken Elliott: Yep. Now, the subtropical jet stream might end up I didn't look at it closely enough to see how far south of Hawaii, goes at points, but that could be close enough that they do better than you would think. And again, I wouldn't expect, if you're going on a Maui vacation, to have any issues with snow. But I'm sure the peaks will come up up in Alaska, kind of like the northwest, I think it'll be touch and go. They've already had, several events already up in the north. I was just talking to some of our guys doing some snowfall analysis up there a little while ago. But up in Alaska, I could see it being, some longer bouts where that jet stream, is more north and there's too far away from the subtropical jet to get on that. So I could see some longer spells, especially central and southern, Alaska that just kind of struggle for a while. Again, subtropical jet stream not dead, but certainly not as active. So frequency probably goes down a little bit in Alaska. The other thing is, sometimes there's like ridging out there. When we snow on the East Coast, it's hard for the entire country to snow simultaneously, including Alaska at times. So there will likely be times where it's really not doing a whole heck of a lot, especially outside of Barrow or something. When it's warm and dry, it's still 27 degrees. And with light snow, just because it's just getting every condensing, every possible moisture particle, out of the atmosphere. Right. I could see it being kind of like touch and go where there might be some spells where not a whole lot happens. But I never sleep on Alaska because they can just take the quietest time and just all of a sudden, the jet stream departs for a week or two. And while that might be the transition on the southern eastern United States that transitions when they get wrecked for a couple of days. Right.
Joe Martucci: Alaska. Ah, it'll always snow in Alaska.
Ken Elliott: Exactly.
Joe Martucci: And then, a question that I know is always a popular one when it comes to the winter, a white Christmas. Do you guys talk anything about just for fun with your clients about white Christmas? How does it look compared to average? More likely in some spots, less likely in others. Obviously, that would parlay into your December forecast as well.
Ken Elliott: Sure. I like it in the interior south. So central and Southern Appalachians, I like it a lot. Central and Southern Rockies? Absolutely. Mountains of California? Absolutely. It's tougher east. I still think there's some mild there that we're going to have to try to get rid of in December. There will be a couple of snow events in December. We'll just have to see how they time out. I do kind of like the idea that and not just climatologically speaking, I could see how it's just more conducive to snow later in December than earlier in December. Just because of some relaxation maybe, and some of that warmth from very late November and early December. So I like the odds of snow at December relative to early the month. But it might be hard on Christmas. If we do have a white Christmas on the 95 Corridor, it will take some very conducive timing and Santa's.
Joe Martucci: Little magic twinkle, in his eye to make it happen.
Ken Elliott: St. Nick never let you down.
Joe Martucci: That is true. I think that's all we have, for the questions here on our part. Is there anything you want to wrap up here when we take a look at the winter outlook?
Ken Elliott: No, I really don't think so. I mean, we pretty covered a whole lot of ground here. I think the one thing to take away here is just because the pattern is so different than it was last year, whatever you had last year is unlikely to repeat itself, at least in terms of how you got there. The end result could be kind of similar in terms of snowfall. And again, especially, in the Midwest now, I think that's probably the most likely area that snowfall is kind of, m more touch and go in that. But like, the way we get there is be vastly different. So bigger storms, you can take that to the bank when exactly they are who they hit, certainly that's certainly up in the air at this point. But the pattern is so much different that whatever happened last year, it will be completely different. At least how we got there, storm attack wise types of storms. Even if the end result is kind of similar, if you kind of average out the numbers at the end of the year.
Joe Martucci: Got it?
Ken Elliott: Yep.
Joe Martucci: And that, that's what happens. We have our El Media winter that we are expecting here. Well, Ken, listen, we really appreciate it. And I'm, sure all of our listening audience appreciates all your insight that you have, from WeatherWorks here. We hope you guys have a good winter. And personally, I want some snow. I don't need record breaking, but more than last year, for me, please, where we had next to nothing, I.
Ken Elliott: Think that is entirely doable. It's got to snow way more. I mean, the subtropical jet stream by itself gets you ten times what you.
Joe Martucci: Got last year, right? We shall see. Well, thanks again, ked. We really appreciate and thanks for coming on the pod.
Ken Elliott: Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Thanks all.
Joe Martucci: A, big thank you to Ken for really doing a fantastic job. I hope you all really enjoyed it, because what he did well not only give the forecast right, which is great, but also breaking it down very nicely and very easy to understand way for you, whether you're in the northeast, southeast, great Lakes, west, wherever, even Alaska, he did a really nice job. So what do you guys think?
Sean Sublette: His clothes, I think, was very good. It's like whatever you had last year probably is not going to be this year. So the idea of continuity, it's going to be kind of the same, is probably not going to play out the weather pattern and all that stuff. It's fundamentally different going into this winter. So do not expect, the same type of weather pattern that we were locked into for a lot of last winter, no matter where you are.
Matt Holiner: And I think the one thing to stress know, sometimes people do get carried away. They talk about a warm winter. It doesn't mean it's going to be warm, it's still going to be cold, especially in the Midwest, when you're talking about above normal temperatures, yes, warmer than normal, but that doesn't mean that it's not going to be cold in the Midwest. Now, I would say that for places like Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, the place that got some really big snows last year because of the combination of it probably being warmer and drier, a repeat of the heavy snow that we saw in those locations that looks like that's going down. But it'll be interesting in the southern part of the Midwest. That's what intrigued me, how he said Cincinnati could end up seeing the same amount of snow as Chicago. And I actually spent a couple years forecasting for Cincinnati, and that would not be normal. Cincinnati is typically a warmer place that sees less snow than Chicago, and it. Seems like there could be a repeat. In some parts of the Midwest, but. The area to watch might be the. Southern tier of the Midwest where they got the systems last year. But many times they were on the.
Joe Martucci: Warm side of it.
Matt Holiner: It was just, an all rain thing. I think that it's going to be, again, all about the timing. Can we get the moisture to line up with the cold. And I think we're definitely going to have the moisture in the southern part of the Midwest, maybe even more so than last year across the southern tier of the Midwest. Can that cold air reach down there for it to be snow instead of rain? So we'll have to watch for places like St. Louis yeah. The Cincinnati's and then Chicago in the transition zone. We'll have to see if we can get a little bit more snow because last year to Chicago was more on the rain side. But we'll end up being a little bit more on the stow side this year. I think it may end up being a kind of a wash here in Chicago because of the warmer air that's expected. It's probably going to be a little. Bit warmer than normal again. So Chicago may be a repeat, but watch maybe a little bit more snow in the southern part.
Kirsten Lang: And if we could just get some snow here in Tulsa too, and not the cold rain that I hate so much, I'll be happy.
Matt Holiner: Yeah, no cold rain.
Joe Martucci: When I think about Tulsa and Dallas, Wichita, I think about a lot of ice. Would I be true?
Kirsten Lang: We had some pretty significant icing events. One of them was back in 2007, I believe. I mean, it shut the city down for like a week or two. It was a big deal. Thankfully, I wasn't living here. But of course there are many, many people that were. So they get real nervous when they hear ice because that was kind of a traumatizing event.
Joe Martucci: Yeah, ice is definitely the worst because, it's not fun. It doesn't look nice. It just kind of looks like rain. And it turns everything into an ice rink.
Kirsten Lang: You can't do anything. Yeah.
Joe Martucci: And you can't do anything.
Matt Holiner: Overall, though, my takeaway was though, that we're probably going to be pretty busy as we talked about the beginning of the podcast. Updating everyone. Because though it might be a little bit quieter on the snow side in the northern part of the country, there's going to be an uptick in the southern part of the country with all these systems that are going to go by. And again, it just seems hard for places like the Northeast, like Richmond and New Jersey for y'all to have a repeat of last winter where there was all, the snubby snow. It seems pretty unlikely to happen in back to back years. So I would say overall that as a country, if you look at the big national picture, a busier winter, it was certainly busy for some last winter, but I think it's going to more even out. It might be quieter in some places, but some places gain a boost. And so I think more places are probably going to have a boost in. How active the winter is. So I think there'll be plenty to talk about this winter in various places at various times.
Joe Martucci: Absolutely. All right, well, let us know what you guys thought about, the winter forecast episode. You can tell us your thoughts on winter as well. Podcast@lee.net. That's plural. Podcast. Podcasts@lee.net. You can also call our hotline. We have a Lee Weather team across the sky podcast hotline. That number is 609-272-7099. Again, 609-272-7099. And we have to give a shoutout to Teresa Hodges, who asked a question she called in. She asked a question. She wanted to know about the solar, eclipse that we had a couple of Saturdays ago. She wanted to know what would happen if you flew through totality on a plane. What would it look like here? And I actually feel like it would be pretty similar to being on the ground. That was my initial thought. I don't know if you guys have. Anything different to add to that. Definitely be darker, but I think you'd still be able to see kind of maybe the sky around you a little.
Matt Holiner: Bit better because you can have a.
Joe Martucci: Better field of vision. Sean, looks like you might have something cooking on it.
Sean Sublette: There was a picture going round the interwebs after the 2017 eclipse where somebody took a picture of the eclipse from an airplane. And it looked pretty cool. But it kind of looks very similar. Just big black circle up in the sky.
Matt Holiner: Yeah. Because in the plane, you are still flying into the shadow. It's being cast on the Earth. So it would be a similar effect. It would get darker. If you're flying, even you're not on the ground, you're going to be flying in the shadow. So it would get darker around. But I think the other key thing that people, I think, got a little Cherried away on with the annular eclipse versus the total eclipse, that 10% 90% of the sun being covered versus 100% makes a big difference. So, again, I think it would have been a little bit underwhelming if you were in the and or if it might gotten a little bit darker. But if you want the dramatic change, it's the total eclipse. And that's why I'm so excited for April. And that's the one to get real excited about, folks, and get in the path of totality. It is so worth it. I saw it in 2017, and I'm doing it again this year. I cannot wait.
Joe Martucci: I'm just reading an article by, I believe this is KXAN, that is in Austin, Texas. They actually composed a list of flights that will be in the air in totality on the eclipse day on April. Eigth ah, 2024. So if you're interested, you can buy your Southwest flights now. I won't read them all, but I'll read how about three of them here? There's a Dallas Love to Pittsburgh at 12:45 p.m. Central time. That's when it leaves Dallas. Then we have a St. Louis at. 01:20 p.m. Central time. Going to Houston? Hobby Airport. And then, there's also one from Milwaukee at 100 and 05:00 p.m. Central going to Dallas that afternoon. So book your flights now if you want to hop on. Or you can also go on. In 2017, they had a cruise ship, a boat that went through Totality. And somebody have to remind me who sang Total Eclipse of the Heart.
Sean Sublette: It would be Bonnie Tyler.
Joe Martucci: Thank you, Sean. I figured Sean would know who it was. Bonnie Tyler. Yeah. So maybe she, I wonder if.
Matt Holiner: She's going redo that.
Joe Martucci: Hopefully she will redo that. We'll, see.
Matt Holiner: Maybe we can get on that one.
Joe Martucci: Maybe we'll have her on the podcast. That would be cool. That would be really cool. Actually. Bonnie, if you're listening, let us know. We would love to have you talk about that. Hope you guys have a great week. We'll be back with you next Monday, and we're going to talk about tips to prepare older loved ones in cases of natural disasters or extreme weather with Dr. Lauren Sutherland from the Ohio State University. We have plenty of more episodes to come after that. You can check that out on your favorite news website or wherever you get your podcast. Take care. Bye.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.