(Tuesday, October 20, 2009) – As a school teacher and meteorologist you can only imagine the assault I take during the winter from, not so much the students, but fellow teachers!! Just kidding! This is a fun venture every year to make my winter predictions AND to forecast the number of school days we will be out. Let me begin with a disclaimer that I am not a long-range forecaster but I generally understand what others are saying as to the so-called “signals” that go into developing winter forecast. I also love snow events, so it is difficult to remain objective.
It is general knowledge now that we have an El Nino operating in the Pacific and it is expected to last through this coming winter. “The term El Niño refers to the large-scale ocean-atmosphere climate phenomenon linked to a periodic warming in sea-surface temperatures across the central and east-central equatorial Pacific (between approximately the date line and 120ºW).” An El Nino episode serves to strengthen the Pacific Jet stream and it will result in a storm track that will run roughly from California across Texas and through the Gulf States. The heaviest precipitation is generally focused along the storm track.
The storm track described above is the favored storm track for our heaviest snowfall in West TN. Its EXACT track is critical. However, the other ingredient, cold air, must be of sufficient depth for the precipitation to take the form of snow. If it is not of sufficient depth for snow, it could be of sufficient depth for ice (either freezing rain or sleet). It becomes a matter of timing…which is always extremely important here in West TN.
I have consulted government and private forecasters. Of particular note is meteorologist Joe Bastardi of AccuWeather. I have followed his forecasts for over a half-dozen years and feel he is an excellent long-range forecaster. So considerable weight was given to his analysis as well as the Climate Forecast System products. The “School Days Missed” is an educated guess with the emphasis on guess. It applies for the Jackson-Madison County Area.
A couple of asides. Check in with my friend Erik Proseus as he has posted his thoughts on the upcoming winter. You can find that here. So far, this October is tied with 1980 as the 10th coolest October on record in Jackson. It’ll be interesting to see if November tries to rebound a bit. I frankly would not be surprised to get a snow duster in November. Climatologically, any measurable snow in November will rank it in the top 10 snowiest Novembers. Finally, we are overdue a round of ice here in the Jackson area. We certainly were blessed to miss the mess across extreme NW TN last winter and hopefully we won’t have to go through anything close to that. However, given the pattern expected, a couple of rounds of ice could be seen.
Here is what I’m going with for the Winter 2009-10:
MONTH TEMP PRECIP SNOWFALL SCHOOL DAYS MISSED
December Below Average Below Average 2″ 1
January Below Average Below Average 3″ 3
February Near Average Near Average 2″ 1
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Summary: Below Average Below Average 7″ 5
