NOAA issues new US winter forecast – and a warning for East Coast cities

El Niño is set to shape the season ahead with the federal government’s official winter outlook and other meteorologists’ forecasts pointing to a wetter and warmer few months for the United States, though not necessarily snowier.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday that El Niño is likely to shift weather patterns to bring more moisture, but with it higher temperatures. That should help erase persistent Western drought, but it likely won’t make Northern snow-lovers happy, the agency said.

El Niño is a natural but temporary warming in parts of the Pacific, and it generally warms the globe. Although it disrupts weather conditions around the world in dramatically different ways, its effects tend to follow predictable regional patterns, especially when El Niño is strong. That gives forecasters greater confidence in what lies ahead.

The weather service does not make seasonal snowfall predictions, but their meteorologists said much of the Northern parts of the country – including the Northeast, Great Lakes, Upper Midwest and Northern Rockies – should expect below-normal snow. The Southern Rockies, parts of the Southeast and Southwest may get more than they usually do.

Private meteorology firms are also predicting Northern snow shrinkage. Salt Lake City is the only big metro area where AccuWeather is forecasting above-normal winter snow amounts.

Chicago, Boston, New York and Philadelphia are forecast to get about half or less of their normal winter snow, the firm said.

Part or all of 41 of the Lower 48 states are forecast to be warmer than normal. No states – or even parts of states – are forecast to be cooler than average. Florida, Louisiana, southern Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi are forecast to be near normal.

There’s equal chances for warm, cold or normal in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Southern California, Nevada and Wyoming and western Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska.

As for the dreaded polar vortex with its icy blast of Arctic air escaping into the United States, that shouldn’t happen as much as most winters, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen at all, said National Weather Service meteorologist and branch chief Jon Gottschalck.

“El Niño can favor a more mild than average winter in the northern United States, but listen, even in the winter months, it doesn’t mean you’re not going to have snow. It doesn’t mean you might not have a snowstorm. So it doesn’t erase the risk,” National Weather Service Director Ken Graham said in a media briefing presenting the three-month winter outlook.

“It only takes one storm to flip the script, especially for the East Coast cities,” said AccuWeather lead long-range forecaster Paul Pastelok, who said to especially watch for Eastern snowstorms in late January and February.

AccuWeather is more bullish than NOAA for snow in the Rockies regions, calling for Denver to have 10 to 18 days with at least 2 inches (5 centimeters) of snow, which is more than the historical average of 9 inches (23 centimeters). The company’s overall snow forecast for Denver is still around average, but considerably more than last winter.

NOAA is forecasting that parts of all of 39 states will see a wetter-than-usual winter, with much of Montana and parts of Oregon, Idaho, Wisconsin and Michigan being drier.

“We anticipate drought conditions to improve or end for western portions of Oregon and western Washington state, the Southwest, the central and southern Rockies, the southern Great Plains, the lower Mississippi Valley, and areas in the East,” Gottschalck said.

Mike Bettes, a meteorologist at The Weather Channel, said it will likely be too much rain for California: “We’d anticipate numerous, high-impact atmospheric rivers that could bring extensive flooding and landslides this winter.”

Atmospheric rivers are long and relatively narrow bands of water vapor. They take water from oceans and flow through the sky dumping rain in prodigious amounts.

Florida and parts of the Southeast should also be on guard for more tornadoes this winter and early spring because of El Niño, Gottschalck said.