Halftime Score: Winter leads by 3 degrees
NOHRSC snow cover as of January 17th shows 40.5% of the USA covered by snow. That's down from 61.4% a week ago.
It's halftime for meteorological winter. And the scoreboard shows winter is winning, so to speak.
We hit the halfway point of meteorological winter (Dec-Feb) on January 15th. Here are the numbers so far.
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Temperature:
-Twin Cities' average temperature so far this winter is 13.9 degrees.
-That's 2.9 degrees below average.
-Coldest morning: -15 on January 2nd.
The monthly breakdown shows December was 1.4 degrees below average, with the first half of January running 5 degrees colder than average. More details here in a nice summary from the Twin Cities NWS.
The colder than average temperatures fall in the minority of El Nino winters in the Upper Midwest. El Nino produces above average winter temperatures in this region about 70% of the time.
Though the second half of winter is starting out 5 to 10 degrees above average, we have some catching up to do if this winter will finish milder than average overall. This may end up being close to an average winter. We'll likely have one or two more arctic outbreaks, but hopefully the coldest part of winter is behind us.
Snowfall:
Snowfall patterns this winter are quite interesting. Here are the numbers for the Twin Cities.
-Snowfall so far: 25.9"
-Average: 27.2"
-Departure: -1.3"
-Last season (2008-'09) to date: 28.6"
It is interesting to note that the primary storm track has been south of the metro again this winter. Several Midwestern Cities have recorded snowfall well in excess of the Twin Cities.
These cities include:
Rochester, MN: 38.9 in.
Sioux Falls, SD: 37.5 in.
Des Moines, IA: 35.9 in.
Madison, WI: 33.6 in.
Chicago, IL: 28.3 in.
The milder weather and January Thaw conditions of the past week have taken a toll on snow covered areas in the southern Midwest. Check out this loop of declining snow cover in the USA over the past week.
It looks like the start of second half of winter will continue to run about 5 to 10 degrees above average this week. There are signs of a messy rain/ice/snow system moving into the region this weekend.
NOAA GFS accumulated precip forecast shows heavy totals possible by this weekend.
Stay tuned!
PH