WSET.com - ABC13Winter Forecast Review by Sean Sublette

Now that we are into March, it is time to take a hard look at our Winter Outlook for 2010-11.  Remember, meteorological winter spans the three month period from December 1 through February 28.  Those are the coldest three months of the year, and it is a few weeks out of phase with astronomical winter (December 21- March 20).

The short version is that we did not do very well.  Some highlights (or lowlights):

We thought the overall winter would be warmer than normal, and the coldest month would be January.  Below are the average temperatures for each month (with the departure from normal in parentheses).  For verification purposes, we are using the data from Lynchburg.

December:  30.4 (-7.8)

January: 32.9 (-1.6)

February: 41.0 (+3.2)

Not even close.  December was far and away the coldest month of the winter.  The overall temperature pattern that developed in middle February was the one we expected to dominate the entire winter; it came very late to the party. 

Now, we did say that the temperature would be above normal in December and February, so the February forecast worked out.  But I think the colossal mistake in December effectively cancels out any February victory.  January breaks the tie.  As a result, it is fair to say that the overall winter was colder than normal.  Ouch.

Regarding precipitation, we expected the winter to be drier than normal, and we forecast 6-12 inches of snow for the entire winter.  Average winter snowfall is 15 inches.

Below are the liquid precipitation amounts.  These amounts are the sum of rain and melted snow.  Again, departures are in parentheses.

December:  2.16" (-1.07")

January:  1.30" (-2.24")

February:  2.12" (-0.98")

Total snow by month:

December:  6.3"

January:  1.9"

February:  Trace

This is the one part of the forecast where we did well.  Despite the biting cold of December, the storm track took most of the big snows just to our north.  The result was a very good precipitation forecast for the winter.  We only had 57% of normal precipitation. 

And the snow total (8.2") fell right in our forecast range of 6-12 inches.

Now… time to start thinking about summer…