Extreme Temperature Diary- Wednesday November 29th, 2023/Main Topic: U.S. Average Temperature Winter Forecast (It Will Be Mild.)

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The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track planetary extreme, or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials).😉

Main Topic: U.S. Average Temperature Winter Forecast (It Will Be Mild.)

Dear Diary. In two days it will be the end of meteorological fall, so once again as we do on this blog, it is time to make a forecast for this coming season. Fall 2023 had mild temperatures overall across the lower 48 states, and I think that we will see a milder than average winter overall due to a combination of climate change and a strong El Niño pumping added warmth into the global atmosphere. Nevertheless, no matter how far above average this coming winter will be overall, there will be periods of very cold conditions for localized areas of the country.

At the very start of fall, it’s time for me to make another attempt at a forecast for average seasonal temperatures in the U.S. This forecast will be very broad and not specific for any one state comprising the continental United States (or lower 48 states).

So how did the forecast work out for Fall 2023? Here is a link to the post for that forecast:

Extreme Temperature Diary- Thursday August 31st, 2023/Main Topic: U.S. Average Temperature Fall Forecast (It Will Be Warm.) – Guy On Climate

By December 8th the National Center for Environmental Information will finish their climatological assessment for Fall 2023, so our verification is not complete as of November 29th. Let’s do fill in ranking numbers with 1 being the coldest and 129 warmest for a verification for months during 2023, which have already been assessed (129 would be warmest for 2023.):

Here are my two cents for a broad, rough forecast for the U.S. for Winter 2023/2024, which I guarantee to be colder than this past fall, of course, as the amount of daylight decreases across the Northern Hemisphere. First, I like to look at water temperature anomalies surrounding North America just before the start of a season to get a sense of how much potential anomalous heat can be added to the atmosphere across the continent. Here is what we see:

The entire continent of North America is surrounded by above average temperature waters. The El Niño that started in the spring is intensifying and is pegged to peak this December. Frankly, I don’t see any good reason why the U.S. will have a bellow average winter looking at sea surface temperatures. It should be quite mild unless we get an unusual jet stream pattern sometime from late December on.

Speaking of upper air patterns and the jet stream, looking at ensembles, it should be mild across most of the lower 48 states through the middle of the month except for the Northeast:

Here is the National Weather Service forecast for Winter 2023/2024:

The above two charts are typical forecasts during an El Niño regime, which would meteorologically have a split jet flow such that winter storms would affect mostly the southern U.S. The northern branch of the jet would have a tendency of staying north of the CONUS, so there would not be as many arctic air intrusions as usual. If you compound El Niño with climate change, this coming winter should be extra mild.

Last, we can get another clue looking at prior National Center for Environmental Information ranking and temperature record count data. For this I like to drag out my “Record Scoreboard” (updated through 11/21/2023):

For these data sets all monthly ratios of > 10 to 1 DHMX to DLMN or > 10 to 1 DLMN to DHMX are in bold type. The rankings are for the lower 48 states with the warmest ranking since 1895 of average temperatures being 129 and 1 being the coldest as of 2023. Blue colors represent cold months and red warm. Those months and years with counts close to a 1 to 1 ratio of highs to lows are colored black. Boldly red-, blue-, or purple-colored months, such as January 2020 and June 2021, have ratios of >10 to 1 daily record highs to lows or <1 to 10 daily record highs to lows, and are either historically hot or cold, most of which have made news. All-time record hot or cold ranked months are highlighted in purple.

Notice that August and September 2023 had a better that 10-1 ratio of DHMX to DLMN record reports, with high ratios continuing into November. I’m thinking that the period from December 2023-February 2024 might be similar.

I’m predicting that all three months of Winter 2023/2024 will be above average with January being the most likely month to see temperatures closer to average. Here is the link to avg. rankings per year for the lower 48 states since 1895:

https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/national/rankings

Not all seasons in the near future will see above average temperatures, but seasonal forecasters are beginning to ”chuck it,” discounting colder than average scenarios due to carbon pollution.

Here are all seasons ranked for the last decade:

The last time we had a below average winter season was in 2014. An average ranking on the above chart would be 64.5 as of 2023.

Here is my bottom-line forecast for Winter 2023/2024:

“I think that this winter will be ranked well above average. I’m going to forecast that the Winter 2023/2024 ranking will be around 110 + or – 10, with above average confidence given all of the factors written within this post.“

My forecast for Summer 2023 of a ranking of 70 was a whopping 45 rankings too cool. My only excuse for that bad forecast was that I had some information that El Niño summers across the lower 48 states tended to be cool:

Extreme Temperature Diary- Thursday June 1st, 2023/Main Topic: U.S. Average Temperature Summer Forecast  – Guy On Climate

We will see how well my forecast ranking of near 110 for Fall 2023 worked out in a few days.

As of 2023 the top ranking for any month or season would be 129 since climatological rankings for the United States started in the year 1895. Carbon pollution is definitely making below average seasons rarer. As stated, I’m going to guess that Fall 2023 gets ranked around 110 + or – 10, and with above average confidence given all of the factors in this post.

Here are more “ET’s” recorded from around the planet the last couple of days, their consequences, and some extreme temperature outlooks, as well as any extreme precipitation reports:

Here is more new October and November 2023 climatology:

Here is More Climate and Weather News from Wednesday:

(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article. The most noteworthy items will be listed first.)

Today’s News on Sustainable Energy, Traditional Polluting Energy from Fossil Fuel, and the Green Revolution:

More from the Weather Department:

More on the Environment and Nature:

More on Other Science and the Beauty of Earth and this Universe:

If you like these posts and my work on record temperature ratios, please contribute via my PayPal widget on this site. Thanks in advance for any support. 

Guy Walton… “The Climate Guy”

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