PORT ANGELES – After last winter’s intense windstorms followed by heavier-than-normal snowfall here in Clallam County, it seemed to us a good idea to look into what is being predicted for this year.

We often hear that El Niño years brings us mild, dry winters and La Niña years brings us cold, wet winters. Both conditions are caused by variations in Pacific Ocean temperatures off the coast of South America.

The El Nino weather pattern of 2019 is over as of this summer, and we have entered the so-called “neutral” phase. That makes forecasting northwest weather even trickier than usual.

We checked in with Cliff Mass, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Washington, to get his take.

“Right now, this is a neutral year. It’s not El Nino. It’s not La Nina. And so these neutral years, temperature and precipitation tend to be near normal. But these are the years that we get the rare extreme things, like the strong flooding situations, atmospheric rivers, you know, the biggest wind storms, you know, the biggest snowstorms. They tend to happen, when they happen, rarely, during these neutral years. So that’s probably the most useful thing I can say I can tell you. Other than that, there’s no reason to expect the overall winter to be highly unusual.”

The Old Farmer’s Almanac is predicting mild temperatures through December, except in the third week of December, when it expects us to get storms with heavy rain and snow.

“Well I don’t know “expect”, but, you know, when they do occur, the most extreme events like these neutral years. The trouble is our skilled forecasting more than a few weeks ahead are not very good. So, you know, that’s that’s an issue. You know, we just lose our skill after one to two weeks.”

It’s a tough job, predicting weather in the northwest and, by the sounds of it, this winter it’s anybody’s guess.

Photo: Cliff Mass