I'm still predicting all-time record snows by 2019-20

Since Jeff Selle's "Snowy Sunday" article in the Press on Tuesday, I've had numerous phone calls and e-mails concerning my March 2014 prediction of a record smashing 200-inch plus winter season at the end of this decade into the early 2020s.

What we saw this past Sunday, Jan. 4, was just an advance preview of what I see coming locally when we have a major collision of the climatological elements that produce record snowfalls in our part of the country.

Between 2019 and 2021, I'm forecasting the least number of sunspots since perhaps the 'Maunder Minimum' cycle of the mid 1600s. This solar 'hibernation' will be the coolest that the sun has been in at least 200 years since the 'Dalton Minimum' low in sunspot activity in the early 1800s, just after the Lewis and Clark expedition into the Pacific Northwest sent by President Thomas Jefferson.

Not only will we probably see a near-record low number of sunspots late this decade, but we are likely to also have one of the coldest 'LA NINA' sea-surface temperature events in at least 200 years in the eastern Pacific Ocean regions.

The combination of extremely low sunspot activity, the strong, cold La Nina and a frigid 'circumpolar vortex' from the Canadian Arctic, should spell SNOW, and lots of it, especially deep across northern Idaho and western Montana.

A stationary 'MOTHER LOW' in the south-central Gulf of Alaska should remain locked in place from the mid fall of 2019 to the early spring of 2020. This abundant supply of moisture should 'override' a huge dome of frigid Arctic air that will be centered just east of the Rockies in Montana and Wyoming. Average temperatures during the early November through mid April period of 2019-20 should run at least 6 to 10 degrees below normal in our region.

I see at least 85 to 90 days during the harsh winter of 2019-20 with measurable snowfall in the Coeur d'Alene area. Perhaps as much as 95 percent of all the precipitation that we'll gauge that winter will arrive in the form of snow compared with a normal winter with less than 40 percent of its moisture as snow and 60 percent in the form of rain or mixed precipitation. Thus far this mild El Nino winter of 2014-15, we've had a whopping 83 percent of our moisture come as rain. Even this past Sunday's big dump of snow was extremely wet with temperatures hovering near the freezing mark.

I'm predicting that either December of 2019 or January of 2020 will smash the 100-inch mark in total snowfall. The all-time record for December snow was 87.4 inches in 2008, when many buildings in the area collapsed and 82.4 inches in January of 1969, when local snow depths reached an all-time record 55 inches in downtown Coeur d'Alene on Jan. 31, 1969. I saw 68 inches of snow on level ground on the same day in Whitefish, Mont., where I was a TV weatherman at the time and running the local weather station.

On Jan. 5, 2009, at my current weather station on Player Drive in the snowy northwestern corner of Coeur d'Alene, I measured 49.3 inches of snow on level ground at 8 a.m. Our sunroom partially collapsed due to the heavy weight of the snow. I had to have my roof shoveled off twice in 2007-08 and once in 2008-09.

In any case, we should have at least several years to prepare for our impending 'SNOW ARMAGEDDON,' perhaps the heaviest dumps of the white stuff in more than 200 years in our part of the country. I'll have more updates later.

NORTH IDAHO WEATHER REVIEW AND LONG-RANGE OUTLOOKS

As of this Friday morning writing of this North Idaho weather review, the past week since our near-record snowstorm on Sunday, Jan. 4, has been much milder than usual for mid winter with afternoon highs in the upper 30s and lower 40s and morning lows in the upper 20s and lower 30s. We've had brilliant sunshine in the afternoon hours after the fog has burned off. Driving conditions have improved.

This next week promises to be milder than usual as well as we head into mid January. There may be a few scattered light rain or snow showers, however, as the high pressure ridge weakens a bit over the Inland Northwest. But, no more big storms are yet in sight.

Longer-term, we may see increasing snows in our part of the country in late January and early February, but the end of this mild, El Nino-enhanced winter of 2014-15 should be much milder than normal with far less snowfall than usual across the region.

Cliff Harris is a climatologist who writes a weekly column for The Press. His opinions are his own. Email sfharris@roadrunner.com