Good afternoon, everyone! We will be starting our winter threat assessment blog this week, and these will be updated 2x per week (free access). This blog will discuss any potential upcoming 
winter storm systems showing up, discuss main pattern drivers we are watching, and give you a better idea of what we do daily! For those that aren’t subscribers, hopefully you’ll find what makes us different and why you should sign-up! We are dedicated to delivering the most accurate forecast through never-ending research and are so thankful for our clients for trusting us.
I wanted to start off by talking about where we are season to date when it comes to snow. Many locations in the central, western, and northern Plains have already picked up measurable snowfall. In fact, Kansas City saw its earliest measurable snow on record back on October 14th – 0.2″.
The focus of today’s blog is to prove or disprove the theory that Northern Hemisphere snow cover in October leads to colder winter temperatures. We can take a look at Eurasia (Siberian) snow cover pace compared to recent Octobers. The month has been running well behind the past several years regarding snow cover extent. However, we have seen a notable increase in snow cover over the past 2 weeks, close to values seen in October 2008 and 2011.
The idea is that if we see rapidly increasing snow cover during October, this will lead to a persistent negative Arctic Oscillation. A -AO leads to higher pressures in the high latitudes helping to force cold air into the lower 48 leading to cold winters. Here is a conglomerate of years that saw some of the lowest snow cover extent in October. The “theory” would suggest these being warmer winters. Here’s how they averaged out:
Certainly not a warm look, in fact – mostly colder than normal in those years. On the contrary, here is a conglomerate of winters that had above normal Northern Hemisphere snow cover in October. These actually turned out warmer than normal. Were there some cold years in there? Absolutely. There are some years where this theory will work but it seems more by chance than anything.
We tried to find a pattern between Eurasian snow cover in October and the upcoming winter temperatures. We found that there is essentially no correlation! The bottom-line is, some years this theory will work, but it seems to be more by luck than anything. I think a point can be made that the increased snow cover seen in recent years is actually due to warming temperatures in the Arctic. Warmer air holds more moisture and can make conditions more conducive for snowfall. To use this theory as a 1:1 correlation for upcoming winter temperatures is not reasonable.
In our next blog Thursday we will have some fun diving into the upcoming pattern and targeting upcoming potential wintry threats in the Ag Belt in November! If you or your business deals with snow removal, we can offer you can an accurate forecast with attention to detail, certified snow totals after a storm, and 24/7 on-call support!! Inquire today at bamwx.com/contact-us.
For those in the energy and natural gas industry, we are also running a FREE trial of our energy subscriptions this week! Simply sign-up at bamwx.com/trial to get a feel for what our service can offer you! You can also receive GWHDD’s straight to your e-mail as the data comes in!! Our service will keep you on top of the trends.
