The weather experts who called the wet summer and fall in Southwest Colorado now say the temperature outlook favors warmer-than-average temperatures extending from the West Coast across most of the inter-mountain West.
“The temperature outlook for November, December and January indicates elevated possibilities of above-normal mean temperatures for Alaska, the Far West, along the northern tier of the United States eastward to include parts of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic,” the Climate Prediction Center says in a release.
The El Niño phenomenon, the warming of the ocean in the equatorial Pacific that brings increased precipitation to the Southwest, will be weak to neutral this winter, the report says.
The precipitation outlook nevertheless sees “enhanced” probabilities of above-median precipitation from Southern California eastward across the Southwest.
The weather map published by the Old Farmer’s Almanac places the extreme southwest corner of Colorado on the very breaking point between cold and snowy and mild and dry.
The almanac calls for above-normal snowfall from eastern Arizona into the Big Bend of Texas. Other areas in the western third of the U.S. should have below-normal precipitation.
In May, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Grand Junction said that in El Niño conditions, the Western Slope has a wet summer and fall, a kind of dry winter followed by a wet spring.
The Climate Prediction Center said its seasonal drought outlook, issued Friday and valid through January, calls for improvement or ending of drought in portions of California, the central and southern plains, the desert Southwest and parts of the East Coast, particularly New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Drought is likely to persist in portions of California, Oregon, Utah and Washington, the report said.
The seasonal outlook doesn’t project where and when snowstorms may hit or provide total seasonal accumulation of snow. Snowfall depends on the strength and location of storms, which usually aren’t predictable more than a week in advance.
daler@durangoherald.com
