Snow falls in New York as AccuWeather discusses the 2024 winter forecast
It may be a mild winter in much of New York over the coming months, but on Oct. 14, snowflakes fell on fall foliage just as AccuWeather discussed the annual winter forecast.
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00:00We're gearing up for the next couple of months and I just was captivated by the background that has changed for our next interview because it's different.
00:09Yes.
00:09Haven't seen it in a while.
00:10No, and I think after lots of hurricane coverage, we're excited to talk about a different kind of weather and yeah, we're talking winter weather and we're seeing winter weather because mid-fall, late fall, into parts of the mountains in New York does mean snow.
00:23And there it is.
00:24There you go.
00:25You head up north through kind of the Adirondacks and many of these locations.
00:29Earth camp showing you at least you're getting the flakes to fall.
00:32But the good news is the roads are warm.
00:33Yeah.
00:34So not sticking.
00:35But it looks like a pretty scene.
00:36And I love when we get right some of the snow with the fall foliage.
00:38I love when seasons overlap like that.
00:40All right.
00:41Well, as the temperatures dip this fall closer to the cold of winter, we want to make sure you're prepared with the accurate winter forecast.
00:48Lead long range expert, meteorologist Paul Pastelok joins us to discuss.
00:53Paul, I don't even know what your favorite season is.
00:55My favorite season?
00:57It's fall, but it's unfortunately that's my busiest season as far as work goes.
01:02So it's hard to, you know, enjoy it.
01:05But at the same time, I'm putting the winter forecast together, which is exciting.
01:10And the timing can't be perfect seeing the scenes that we're seeing out there in upstate New York right now.
01:15Yeah, we've got a great producer, Barry.
01:16Thanks so much for that.
01:17All right, Paul.
01:18Last winter was the warmest ever in the U.S.
01:21So how will the upcoming winter season compare and differ to the last?
01:25Well, I don't think it's going to be overall a cold winter season.
01:28It's going to be a little bit similar to what we saw last year, but not the same.
01:32There will be some changes.
01:33Not every winter is generally the same.
01:35But it looks like we're going to have some breaks, some surges of cold that will break up some of the warmer periods that we have.
01:44But the warm will probably outdo the cold in the end game.
01:48And you can see by this temperature map, much of the country from the southern plains to the Tennessee, Ohio Valley will end up being above average.
01:56And that's just basically because the storm track is going to be so far north most of the time
02:02and keeping that cold bottled up in the western U.S. or western Canada.
02:07Well, when people see a lot of orange on the map, maybe they think, ooh, my bills won't be too bad with the winter.
02:12But we know that there's going to be quite a heating demand.
02:15There is.
02:16And you're still going to see quite a bit of heating demand across the northern Rockies, across the north central states.
02:22But the rest of the area, you're going to get in periods where you're seeing less demand for energy from the southern plains to the Tennessee Valley,
02:29and especially if everything works out the way it is midseason.
02:33Midseason, we could see that big difference occurring with a lot of Pacific air coming across from the west.
02:40And what happens is that air downslopes into the plains and eases and warms.
02:44And we could see a lot of that happening during the month of January.
02:47And if that's the case, your big cities like New York, Washington, down to Memphis and Houston,
02:51you're going to see an increase, actually a decrease in your demand for heating.
02:57Cities along the I-95 corridor saw well below average snowfall last winter.
03:03So, Paul, what can you tell us? Are we going to need the snowblowers this winter?
03:06Well, you know, when you have a lot of mild periods, it kind of puts a little damper as far as getting snow when storms come up.
03:13We saw that last December where there was a lot of rain events, in fact, flooding in parts of New England last year.
03:19This year, December looks a little bit different.
03:22We may get some activity here as far as snow goes late November into December.
03:27Based on northern branch systems coming out of the upper Midwest into the northeast, that kicks up the above average to start off the season.
03:34And then a little bit of a lull, and then it tries to come back toward the back end of the season.
03:38We'll have to watch a few things to see if everything comes together.
03:41But again, a northern type setup, which you get in a typical what we call La Nina season,
03:48generally brings above average snowfall to the north and below average to the south.
03:52Although this is a weak signal, things could change and things can be a little bit different.
03:57And that's what we're going to be watching very carefully this winter.
04:00If I'm a skier, if I work at one of the resorts, what can you tell us about the ski season?
04:04Well, again, those lulls could bring times where we don't get accumulating snowfall, especially the southern ski areas.
04:11Also, those mixing events.
04:13When you get some mild Pacific air in, you can get ice, and that can cause some icy conditions.
04:18And that's going to be a problem in parts of the central southern Appalachians, also maybe the southern Rockies.
04:22But elsewhere, I think the northwest, the interior west, northern Rockies looks great.
04:27I think the upper Midwest could get into good snowpack early on in the season, and that sets the tone for the rest of the season.
04:34And the interior northeast should do well as well, as long as we can continue to get some snow,
04:39at least in the front end around the holidays and maybe at the back end of the winter season.
04:43All right, Paul, one more because you put so much science into this.
04:47So we're looking at the ocean temperature anomaly, three areas that you look at.
04:52Three areas to watch going through this winter season.
04:55Down across the south, there's the equator.
04:57That's where the La Nina begins.
04:59We continue to see the cooling going on in the ENSO region.
05:03If that connects with the upper levels of the atmosphere and sets the tone, we'll have more of a La Nina winter,
05:09and that gives us a chance to get some colder weather and some snow in the north.
05:13But risk.
05:14Warm water north of Hawaii, south of Alaska, if that shifts a little farther to the east where that cool water is,
05:21that could actually result in higher pressure off the west coast.
05:25The west could turn drier.
05:27The east could get worse.
05:29We could have more snow.
05:30We saw this happen back in 2013-14 winter season.
05:33If that's the case, we could have a bigger season on our hands.
05:37But right now, that does not show that, and that's why we're going what we showed on the maps already.
05:42Literally predicting the future.
05:44AccuWeather lead, long-range expert Paul Pastalak, thanks again for joining us.
05:48And thank you, Saranac Lake, for providing this beautiful scene, this view courtesy of EarthKAM.