(Area) Some areas of the state are as much as seven inches below their average snowfall total for this time of year.
While State Climatologist Justin Glisan warns late January and the month of February have been known to be active months, there is no immediate indication for heavy snow. “If we look at the current outlooks that get us into the middle of January we are stuck in a pretty dry pattern, a pretty stable dry pattern, so not in the near term.”
However, there’s still plenty time left in the winter to make up some ground. “So if we look at years in which the La Nina phase is similar to what we are seeing now, we should see above normal snow pack at some point during the season. Late January and February would be the period of time in which we would possibly catch up.”
Cold conditions are ushering in the new year. Glisan points out we were bound do come back down to reality after being spoiled by unusually mild temperatures in December. “It’s not going to be what we saw in February of last year when we had days and days when we were 20-30 degrees below average, but we will have colder temperatures, much colder than we should have this time of year over the next several days.”
He says the long term outlook into the 2nd and 3rd week of January transitions back into elevated probabilities of warmer than average temperatures.
