How accurate was AccuWeather's 2023-2024 winter forecast?

AccuWeather

On the final day of winter, AccuWeather's Paul Pastelok takes a look back at how the winter played out in comparison to the long-range forecasts.

Transcript

00:00 All right, meanwhile, what a winter it has been, and joining us right now is AccuWeather

00:04 League long-range expert Paul Pasolak.

00:07 You know, Paul, again, winter officially, astronomically ends later on tonight.

00:15 It's been an interesting winter, and I think it's a winter that you and the long-range

00:19 team, yourself, the Crystal Ball, Alex Da Silva, has really honed in well.

00:25 And I want to talk about some of the key points that you all brought up before the winter

00:30 started.

00:31 Yeah, Bernie, you know, we put the forecast together back in August and September, and

00:37 when we put it all together, we look at, you know, just several things, not just forecast

00:42 models, but we also look at a tremendous amount of information research.

00:47 And when we put it all together, we came up with some ideas, and some of these worked

00:51 out pretty well.

00:52 I mean, we talked about how mild the winter was going to be across the northern tier of

00:56 the nation.

00:57 Now, the values were really high, but we had that area pinpointed since September, and

01:02 in a stormy February, that was the big hit that we had.

01:06 From September, we looked at modeling and research and picked out that February was

01:10 going to be the most active month across the nation.

01:13 We had above-normal precipitation from south Texas all the way to New England with flooding

01:18 and heavy rainfall.

01:19 In December, we had big systems on the East Coast, but no cold, so a lot of rain fell

01:23 in those areas.

01:24 And then the atmospheric rivers struck California on time, on cue.

01:29 We figured the second half of the winter season, not the first half, being more active in that

01:35 situation, Bernie.

01:36 And, you know, Paul, when you and I talked about that, specifically in California, you

01:39 know, you told me this.

01:40 One of the things I'm looking at, Bernie, that has me worried about California is the

01:45 sea surface temperature anomalies, where we had the pockets of cooler water in the Pacific,

01:51 and that was one of your keys.

01:53 And you could still see that going on today.

01:56 Explain.

01:57 Yeah.

01:58 One of the big things when we put our seasonal forecast together is we look at all basins

02:01 across the globe as far as water temperatures go.

02:05 It has a big impact on the positioning of high-pressure areas, low-pressure areas, and

02:10 especially storm tracks.

02:12 And you notice here southeast of Hawaii, the water temperatures are running a little

02:15 bit cooler than normal.

02:17 They were more significantly cooler than normal early on in the winter season.

02:20 And what happened that the subtropical jet, the second jet stream that split in El Nino

02:25 time period, that did not form and did not develop on time.

02:30 And that's why we didn't get rich moisture coming in Southern California.

02:33 All our storms are coming from the northwest to the southeast.

02:36 And, yes, we had one or two storms here and there in Southern California, but the big

02:40 stuff came in February with the jet stream split.

02:42 And this is the normal setup that you see in an El Nino winter.

02:45 See that split off the west coast?

02:47 That southern jet didn't form until the second half, and that's when we started getting into

02:52 these beefy storms that came here early in February, as we predicted back in September.

02:57 You know, Joe, the other thing we see, Paul, is the milder air across the central U.S.

03:02 And, boy, we're calling it a year without a winter in the upper Midwest.

03:06 Just tremendous warmth, as you talked about.

03:08 Not only was it warm, it was the warmest on record.

03:12 And, unfortunately, Paul, this really hurt the local economy, and there's going to be

03:16 economic impacts that will linger into the summertime.

03:20 And this graphic, I think, is just truly amazing.

03:22 Yeah, you look at the departures from snowfall way behind normal, way behind historical averages

03:28 right now.

03:29 We're trying to catch up, but we're not going to come anywhere close.

03:32 This is what you typically see in an El Nino season, a lack of snowfall because of a lack

03:37 of cold in this part of the country.

03:39 We didn't see much in the way as far as lake effect snow goes, despite the lakes being

03:43 wide open for pretty much most of the season.

03:46 But we're starting to catch up a little bit now, Bernie, as you kind of talked about a

03:49 little while ago.

03:50 All right.

03:51 AccuWeather, Lee Longrange, expert Paul Patsilak.

03:55 Paul will be back with us at 1030.

03:57 And we're going to switch gears and go into the spring forecast.

04:01 Thanks for joining us, Paul.

04:02 (upbeat music)

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