2015-16: One of the Warmest Winters on Record

From a climatological perspective, the winter season for us is considered to be the calendar months of Dec-Feb.  Now that we are through February, thought a look back at the last three months would be instructive.  From a temperature standpoint, this past winter season now stands as the third warmest on record. Notice the chart which shows how we stacked up this past winter. It also shows that the month of Feb has been the 8th warmest on record.

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Interestingly, it has also been one of the wettest winters with a total of 9.80” of moisture which is good enough to put us in 5th place.  That is mis-leading though as by far the most of that fell in December with 8.6” and we have been mostly dry since then.  Also, our snowfall total stands at 3” but we still have March and even April to go when we may yet receive some additional wintry weather to add to that total.  At this point in time, those possibilities look very remote though.  At any rate, our normal snowfall for the cold season is just under 10” and we are well below that so far. 

The coldest day was Jan 10 when we dropped to 10 degrees which was the day following our biggest snow to this point of 2.5” on Jan 9.  In addition, we have only had three days in which the temperature failed to rise above freezing which is another indicator of how mild this winter has been.

That is a brief look back, now for a look ahead.  A vigorous storm system will be moving quickly across the state overnight tonight with a good chance of showers and storms by around the midnight time frame.  Although the timing is not very favorable, there is enough instability and the low level jet will be cranking up to produce some decent storms with a wind/hail threat.  Notice the severe weather threat area for the overnight hours. 

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Also, the rapid movement of this system will limit rainfall totals to perhaps as much as an inch for some locations; most of us will receive less than that though as you can see on the map.

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The rapid movement should have the system quickly moving on eastward by morning with perhaps a few lingering light showers for the extreme eastern counties.  That will be followed by clearing skies and gusty NW winds through the day Tuesday which in turn means cooler temperatures.  However, the sunshine will still produce a nice afternoon rebound as you can see on our forecast page.

Southerly winds will return for Wednesday followed by another system moving through the state on Thursday and shifting our winds back to northerly.  Southerly winds will return for Fri-Sun but another, rapidly moving system may produce some showers Sunday.  Bottom line is these rapidly moving systems will be windy with gusty winds each day as the winds shift around, and that could lead to some significant fire danger concerns.

There is a slight chance of a few showers with the Thursday system, possibly a better chance with the Sunday system; but the rapid movement of these systems leads to additional uncertainty at those longer time ranges.  At any rate, with the possible exception of Tuesday, temperatures will remain above normal for this time of year right on through the weekend.  That means no dramatic temperature changes are expected to impact the Grand Lake area for the upcoming Classic this weekend.

Looking beyond that, we see that the trends on the 8-14 day outlook continue to support warmer than normal temperatures.  But, those trends also support a more active weather pattern with the potential for more moisture over that time frame.    

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So, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot