My winter 2016-2017 forecast for Missouri!

 

Taney County MO – After promulgating for some time, and after looking at some of the very recent changes in global weather data, I'll admit to some confusion. In just the past month or so, the tropical Pacific has changed gears, and now expert forecasters think there’s a 70% chance that La Niña conditions will develop this fall. However, any La Niña that develops is likely to be weak, and forecasters aren’t quite as confident that La Niña conditions will persist long enough to be considered a full-blown episode, giving it a 55% chance through the winter. So... what's that mean exactly for people living in southwest Missouri?

As is often the case in a strong La Niña setup, we would be looking at warmer than normal conditions, at least through the month of December, at which point some more 'interesting' weather may develop at the start of 2017 in the form of sporadic icing types of events! However, this time around we could likely see a weak or barely there La Niña that could even move in the opposite direction towards an equally weak El Niño setup. Blah and balderdash!

Below, the latest graphical summaries for the period Oct thru Dec:
 

For now, the weather watchers will be eyeing the tropical Pacific closely over the month of October, to see if the 'suggestions' of La Niña that showed up in the second half of September is really here to stay. The current computer model forecasts are predicting a few more three-month-average periods of around half a degree (C) below average in the Niño3.4 region—right at the La Niña threshold. Remembering that a weak La Niña likely means lower confidence impacts on U.S. weather and climate during the winter compared to a stronger event probability. If that sounds a bit wishy washy, so be it! www.taneyservices.com