A Return of Winter

It is that exciting time of year when we start thinking about winter weather and what we can expect.  I have just received the first of numerous forecasts that give a hint of what to expect.  
The first details come from Craig McPeck with Snow Day.............here ya go and I gotta say it looks very encouraging for all of us that love Old Man Winter.

Winter Forecast 2012-2013 – A Return to Winter! 

 Before getting into this years winter forecast, a comment about last winter and what went wrong. Almost everyone predicted another blockbuster winter and we all know that didn’t happen. The NAO along with the AO turned sharply positive through the winter and that in turn created warmer conditions over the winter with blocking patterns keeping the cold air bottled up in parts of Canada and ESPECIALLY Alaska, they had a record breaking winter with excessive snowfall while nearly the entire United States experienced record warm temperatures, very little snow and unhappy school children that received no snow days.Now let’s get into the winter forecast  as we are experiencing and heading into…EL NINO(weak at this point)!

 One thing to focus on as fall progresses is the LRC weather cycle theory, a new unique pattern that sets up every October 1st through early November and keeps cycling over and over through the next fall. It was developed by Gary Lezac of Kansas City, so will be paying attention over the next several weeks as a brand new pattern starts to set up and cycles on through the winter.

With a weak El Nino  and expecting a negative NAO, we seem to be following the pattern that led us into the winter of 2009-2010. Now predicting whether the NAO/AO will be negative or positive is extremely tough but most are leaning heavily towards a negative NAO/AO winter but time will tell of course. Given these assumptions, this will be a much different winter then last and puts the Quad Cities in the heart of below normal temps and slightly above normal snowfall!  OH YEA!!!!!!  There should be persistent blocking over Greenland with a ridge over western Canada promoting extended periods of cold for our area. Expect slightly above normal snowfall, and expect a few big storm systems to land on shore of southern California and attach themselves to the cold air over the central Plains creating the potential for some significant snowfall.  Will the NAO/AO stay negative through the winter?  That is critical!  At the present time there is enough evidence that the current pattern is going to take us into a much more snowier and colder winter!  Updates to follow as well as predictions from other sources..............