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Winter 2020 outlook: Some snow, snaps of cold

Expected snowfall is the trickiest part of the winter outlook, but if you love snow, we have some good news. In every La Niña year, we have had at least one measurable snow event and another three days or more with a trace of snow.

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WRAL Severe Weather Center

Before we look ahead at the coming winter, let's see how we did with last year’s forecast.

WRAL Severe Weather Center off by an inch on 2019-20 winter weather forecast

Last year, we were in an El Niño neutral year. Our research led us to believe that temperatures would be above normal with a few cold snaps and that snowfall would likely fall short of the climatological normal of 6.8”.

We predicted 3.5 inches of snow.

We were right with the temperatures. Above-normal temperatures prevailed every month with a few cold snaps. Sixty of 91 days were above normal. The coldest day was 22° on Feb. 22, and the warmest were 76° – on Dec. 10 and 30.

We came pretty close with the snowfall forecast. We forecasted 3.5 inches and received 2.5, an inch short of our prediction.

So what do we expect in 2020-21?

This year, we are in a La Niña weather pattern. We looked back over the last 50 years and found that eight of those were La Niña years. Every single one of those years had above-normal temperatures during the winter months.

This part of our winter forecast is a no-brainer. We are going with above-normal temperatures with a few cold snaps. Because so many people want to spend time outdoors during the pandemic, perhaps this is a bit of good news.

Next up is our prediction for snowfall.

Expected snowfall is the trickiest part of the winter outlook, but if you love snow, we have some good news. In every La Niña year, we have had at least one measurable snow event and another three days or more with a trace of snow. In other words, in every La Niña year, we have had a minimum of four days with snowflakes seen. So, we feel confident that we will at least get some snow.

We are predicting a total through the season of 3 to 5 inches, just under the climatological normal of 6.8 inches.

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