While the two main U.S. farmers’ almanacs are calling for a brutal winter, a long-term forecast from AccuWeather.com brings news that might be received a bit more, um, warmly.
AccuWeather’s forecast calls for the Northeast to “dodge winter’s brutal cold.” It cites the El Niño weather pattern as a cause for a drier, more mild winter, particularly during the early part of the season. For the later months, things are less clear.
“We just don’t know exactly yet whether or not we’re going to see the pattern turn cold and snowy,” AccuWeather Expert Long-Range Forecaster Paul Pastelok said in the report. “…There is an opportunity that [the weather] could change on us as we get into February and early March.”
The report says the Northeast can expect fewer days of subzero temperatures than last year. Temperatures dipped into record lows multiple times last winter, so cheers to possibly avoiding that again.
The National Ocean Service, by the way, defines El Niño as a “large-scale ocean-atmosphere climate interaction linked to a periodic warming in sea surface temperatures across the central and east-central Equatorial Pacific.”
It affects each part of the country in a different way, including possibly bringing heavy rains to drought-stricken California.
Check out AccuWeather.com’s full forecast here for more on El Niño and its possible impact.
