Winter officially started on Saturday, December 21. What does Mother Nature have in store for us this year?
WYSO’s Mike Frazier asked Logan Clark, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Wilmington, about the winter weather outlook for Southwest Ohio and the tools they use to make that forecast.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Logan Clark: We look at a couple of things. Of course, you've got the Climate Prediction Center that's got their seasonal outlooks for the month of December, January and February. And for Southwest Ohio, it's calling for leaning toward slightly above-average precipitation, not necessarily snowfall, but just liquid equivalent precipitation in general. And then also leaning toward slightly above temperatures in that same location as well. So we have that from the Climate Prediction Center.
But we can also look at other, kind of large scale climate patterns such as the El Nino Southern oscillation, which I know you wanted to talk a little bit about that, and the La Nina that's associated with it.
Mike Frazier: Yes, so can you describe those two elements in layman's terms, what they are and how they affect our weather here in Southwest Ohio?
Clark: The El Nino Southern oscillation — it's basically just looking at a naturally occurring global climate pattern that involves changes in oceanic temperatures across the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. And so we track and monitor temperatures in that particular area because at the end of the day, Earth's global climate system is all kind of interconnected. You have changes that occur in one part of the globe or the atmosphere that could eventually translate down toward another part of the globe. And that's why we look at this kind of stuff, because the ocean interacts with the air above it, and vice versa, and that air can eventually gets picked up into the upper atmosphere and gets into the prevailing westerlies and eventually translates over to us in Southwest Ohio.
Then you get into El Nino, which is kind of the warm phase. You've got warmer than normal temperatures there. But right now, what we're looking at is at least a greater probability for La Nina to develop. So that's kind of like the cool phase. What we're essentially looking at is temperatures in that particular region in the Pacific Ocean.
And there's a lot of things to look at. Of course, you do have different strengths of your La Nina episodes. So if you're sitting at right around minus half degrees Celsius, that's kind of a weaker episode and that's what we're expecting this winter.
Frazier: And there's so many factors going into a weather forecast that if one of those factors changes, that could have a domino effect in terms of the way the weather manifests itself at a specific location, in our case, Southwest Ohio.
Clark: Yeah, it really can. I mean, it's the same idea as forecasting severe weather. We tell people it's kind of like baking cupcakes. You have all these ingredients that can help you make sort of the perfect cupcake or give you the perfect day for severe weather. But you're missing one of those ingredients and it can really shift how things kind of change or evolve or taste if you're eating a cupcake. And so that's kind of an analogy we use — it’s a silly one, but it kind of gives that general idea that you do have to have all these factors come together.
And often that's kind of the challenge of forecasting, is that you're looking at all these different things, but a subtle shift in the track of a system, a shift on where the moisture is located, even in the depth of the atmosphere, there's a lot of factors — how the temperature maybe changes — there's a lot of factors that go into producing the perfect event. And that's where we have to come in and try to assess that as best as possible. But yet, like you said, it is kind of almost the domino effect.
Frazier: What do you think would be the best way for folks to get up-to-date weather information?
Clark: The way people receive weather information has certainly evolved. I mean, obviously, cell phones are a great resource we have, especially for higher-end alerts that we need to send out like tornado warnings. You do get those WEAs — the wireless emergency alerts — that are automatically sent to your cell phones. And those are always great.
But we always emphasize NOAA weather radios. It's a great and reliable way to receive weather information. And you can customize and tailor that to receive only certain alerts that you're really interested in.
And the one thing we will say is that when it comes to NOAA weather radios, those things will really wake you up in the middle of the night if you need to be woken up to seek shelter, especially when it comes to severe weather. So NOAA weather radio is always a great resource. I know it seems kind of an outdated thing, but certainly one of the most reliable ways that we have to disseminate our warning information.
