NORTHEAST Pa. (WOLF) — We’re in the heart of fall, but we’re already looking ahead to the winter months, and we’re going to discuss the difference between weather and climate.
Weather is the current atmospheric conditions. Think of a winter snowstorm, maybe a cold outbreak of air. Some lake effect snow weather is what we’re getting. Climate is the prevailing weather for that season. We live in northeastern PA. We expect cold and snowy conditions. Climate is what we expect. Weather is what we get as far as the average is for the winter months.
Average high in December is around 40 degrees, 35.7 in January, and temperatures start turning around a little during February, with an average high of 38.8 degrees. Average low is in the 20s. Precipitation. Snowfall 7.7in for the average snowfall in December. Up to 11.7in in January. Just under 11in. 10.9in for the average snowfall in February. And when we talk about the winter outlook, we’re looking at the waters of the Pacific.
El Niño is warm waters over the Pacific. La Niña is cool waters, transitional conditions, neutral conditions. We had that over the summer, and that adds a little variability to the prediction. We’re going to be dealing with cooler waters, a La Niña situation, and that’s going to affect the jet stream. You can see mainly west-to-east flow across the US, maybe a low amplitude trough through the middle part of the country, but that’s going to bring some colder weather to the northern plains, the western Great Lakes.
As you move a little close to our area, you can see warmer conditions. The jet stream is the dividing line between that colder air to the north and the warmer air to the south. And you can see parts of our viewing area could be dealing with some warmer weather for this winter. In fact, the temperature outlook does give our northern counties a near normal situation, with a better chance of above normal temperatures through the winter to our southern counties as far as precipitation.
We have about a 50/50 chance of normal precipitation during the winter months. You can see that does bump up a little bit over parts of northwestern Pennsylvania, so expect southern locations to be a little warmer this winter near normal across our northern locations, with average precipitation and snowfall.