WSET.com - ABC13Early Winter Thoughts by Sean Sublette

The summer is fading quickly. There will be a mini-heat wave next week... and sure, there are still a few weeks when normal highs are in the upper 70s to lower 80s, but you have probably noticed that it is getting darker much earlier than just 4 weeks ago.

Once we get past hurricane season (which doesn't peak for another 3 weeks), the next task will be putting together some type of outlook for this coming winter. Once all of the data are in for August, we can compare the summer of 2010 against previous summers with similar weather patterns. Additionally, we can look at other large scale atmospheric oscillations.

Foremost is the state of the Pacific Ocean near the equator. We have raced squarely into a La Nina pattern over the last few weeks, and historically, that is a positive step toward getting us a colder than average winter.

But there is a cautionary note. Last winter was an El Nino year, which usually gives a warmer and wetter winter. However, another pattern interacted with the El Nino: The North Atlantic Oscillation, or NAO. The NAO was in a dramatically negative phase most of last winter, which sent repeated blasts of cold air into the East Coast.

Surprisingly, although it was a consistently cold winter, there were very few bitterly cold nights. Going back through the temperature records, there was only one night when the temperature fell below 10 degrees (-2 on the morning of January 31).

Statistically, it would be very difficult to duplicate the amount of snow that we had last winter. Before then, the last winter that brought that much snow was 1995-96. However, those of you of a certain age will remember the consistently cold and snowy winters of the late 1970s, so it is certainly possible. More ahead in a few weeks!