At the end of August, I made a prediction:
My point is — I think this is going to be a very, very snowy winter.
And The Baltimore Sun is backing me up:
El Ninos occur every three to five years when the surface waters of the central and eastern tropical Pacific become significantly warmer than the average – by a couple of degrees at present. That influences the track of the jet streams across the Pacific, which in turn influences weather patterns across North America in ways that scientists have come to understand fairly well.
For example, the northern and western states tend to be warmer than average during El Nino winters; California sees more storms off the ocean; the Midwest tends to be drier and milder than average; and the Southeast tends to be cooler and wetter than average.
At AccuWeather.com this week, Bastardi cited El Nino as the chief reason why he expects the core of this year’s wintry weather to shift out of the Midwest, where it was last winter, and into the Mid-Atlantic states. Asked for a prediction for Baltimore, he did not hesitate to crawl out on a limb: “Twenty-five inches at BWI, and 2.7 degrees below normal,” he said.
The average snowfall for Baltimore for the 30-year period from 1971 to 2000 was 18.2 inches, and the city has only topped that once since the big snows of 2002-2003. Even then (in 2005-2006), it was by less than an inch and a half.
Bastardi isn’t predicting anything like the 55 inches the airport recorded in 2002-2003. But a snow total of 25 inches would seem like a lot after six winters in a row with less than that. The past two winters combined produced less than 18 inches of snow.
On the other hand, he said, “It has the potential to get there [55 inches]; don’t get me wrong.”
Among the other factors that Bastardi takes into account, in addition to El Nino, are winter analogs – past winters when conditions were similar to those setting up this year. He sees similarities between this year’s patterns and those that prevailed during the winters of 1976-1977, which was very cold, and 1977-1978, which saw 34 inches of snow at BWI. He also sees a resemblance to the winter of 1957-1958, which brought 43 inches of snow to Baltimore and very wintry weather in February and March. “There are some very heavy hitters coming to the plate,” Bastardi said.
Yeah, I know, Baltimore isn’t DC, but you know what? It’s not like Baltimore is that far away (it isn’t). If Baltimore gets a snowy winter, DC is going to get it too. And me? I’m supremely excited!
(I’m also stocking up on mass quantities of toilet paper the next time I’m at Target).