Beware the Law Of Averages When Looking At The Weather
If you look at the weather we’ve had this winter, it’s been about average–in the long run. Despite January running about 7 degrees warmer than normal, December was 4 degrees below normal, so the temperatures more or less average out here in the Atlanta area.
Taking a broader view, the overall warmer than normal temperatures we’ve see so far in the United States for 2006 can be balanced out with the extreme cold seen this month in Russia. They’ve gotten into the 30 below range, and now the colder weather is moving into much of Europe.
One could make an argument that instead of Winter’s cold dispersing evenly from the Arctic into the mid latitudes, most of the cold is flowing toward the east, leaving the west with a relatively mild winter.
The real question for what ultimately happens this winter will be the temperatures in February. Last week, the forecast models all showed a much colder pattern returning to the US shortly after the first of the month. I saw forecasts predicting temperatures not rising out of the 40s for the first week of February, with snow and ice predicted rather than rain.
Since then, the models have returned to the warmer than normal pattern we’ve been in, and finally taken on a new idea, one that brings February more within the normal range, with highs in the low 50s during the early part of the month (Normal highs in February in Atlanta range from 52 at the beginning of the month to 59 at the end).
Part of this illustrates the difficulty of making accurate weather forecasts more than about a week away. In the short range, we’ll probably see sunny weather, much improved from last weekend’s Seattle like drizzle. Expect temperatures in the mid 50s midweek, rising to the 60s over the weekend, when we’re likely to see some showers Saturday night and Sunday. Things then clear up as we approach February 2nd, the day when General Beauregard Lee will make his groundhog prognostication as to the future of winter — a forecast that might, indeed, be as good as what the computer models are telling us.
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