The East envied our lovely White Christmas

Many residents east of the Rockies are looking at the West with envy. We are one of the few places that enjoyed a White Christmas. In fact, there was plenty of the white stuff for sledding as about 19 inches was reported on the ground on Christmas Eve at Cliff’s station and other areas. The ski resorts were reporting snow depths of 4 to 7 feet.

By extreme contrast, most of the eastern third of the U.S. was expecting to have record-breaking warmth on Christmas Day. It’s almost hard to believe that Las Vegas was forecasting a low temperature that was going to be colder than in Buffalo, N.Y. In normally warm Phoenix, Ariz., temperatures Christmas morning were expected to be in the upper 40s, which would be approximately 10 degrees colder than many of the major cities in the Northeast. Even southern Canada was likely to report readings much milder than normal on Christmas Day.

Here in the Inland Northwest, the last half of December will finish in the Top 10 for snow as more of the white stuff was expected on Christmas Day. Again, by extreme contrast, rain, thunderstorms and even deadly tornadoes were seen across the southeastern portions of the country late last week. There’s no question that our cycle of wide weather extremes is as strong as ever.

At the end of November, Cliff’s station had reported 2.9 inches of snow. Only 0.6 inches of the white stuff was measured from Dec. 1 through Dec. 15. Then, the big snows came and Coeur d’Alene, as of Sunday afternoon, has 34.6 inches of snow for the season. Over a foot of snow fell from the big storm early last week which guaranteed a White Christmas for the region. The last time we had a snowstorm that big was in January of 2009.

Forecasting snowfall totals during an El Nino is a bit tricky. For example, the big storm on Dec. 7 dropped about 1.25 inches of rain. If that system had been 3-4 degrees cooler, then most of it would have fallen as snow. On the other side of the coin, if the system that brought the heavy snows last week had been 3-4 degrees warmer, then most of the moisture would have fallen as rain.

My early prediction for snowfall was about 35 to 40 inches, based on the warm El Nino in the Pacific Ocean. Cliff and I now project a seasonal total near 50 inches, which is still below the normal of 69.8 inches in Coeur d’Alene.

December’s precipitation total will likely end up around 6.8 inches, well above the normal of 3.90 inches. Our seasonal total was closing in on 26 inches of rain and melted snow. Our normal for the season is 26.77 inches. It’s amazing that we’ve received more moisture in December than during the previous five months combined.

Although we have an El Nino pattern that’s one of the strongest in history, there have been instances during El Nino years when our region receives a lot of snow in a short period of time. For example, the all-time record El Nino years of 1996 and 1997, over 50 inches of snow fell in December of 1996. But, in January and February of 1997, snowfall totals dropped off dramatically as much of the moisture fell as rain.

Weather patterns are expected to turn drier across our region during the beginning of 2016. Temperatures should also start to warm up after New Year’s Day. The Inland Northwest will likely see more of that dense fog, and freezing fog, over the next few weeks as high pressure moves back into our region.

For the first several weeks of January, what moisture we see should fall as more rain than snow. Our best chance of widespread snow returns around the full moon lunar cycle on Jan. 23. Cliff and I both agree that we’ve probably seen the biggest snows of the season as El Nino is forecast to send Pacific storms to the south into central and southern California later in January and February. Residents in the central and southern portions of the Golden State are still waiting for the flooding rains.

Despite the unusual pattern for an El Nino, forecasters, including us, are expecting weather patterns to change in January. Based on historical El Ninos, for example, in 1983, the flooding El Nino rains did not arrive in California until January. In 1998, the record El Nino event, the biggest storms didn’t show up until February.

Cliff and I hope that everyone had a great Christmas. Have a safe and wonderful New Year!

Contact Randy Mann at randy@longrangeweather.com