Cold air from the arctic covered much of the country over the past week, creating sub-freezing temperatures in all 50 states, and setting a number of low temperature records. On Dakota Midday State Climatologist Dennis Todey shares what this early cold weather means for the rest of winter.
State Climatologist Dennis Todey says it’s not unusual for a pool of cold air to affect so much of the country. What is unique is the timing. He says usually this doesn’t happen until December or January. He says now people are wondering what this tells us about the rest of the winter.
“You know there’s this natural thinking to say, ‘Well, it’s really cold and bad in November, and well that must mean that the rest of winter is going to be really bad that we’re getting this early a start.’ And statistically we found out it really tells us nothing,” Todey says. “We’ve had several years where we’ve been cold early and stayed cold. We’ve also had several years where we’ve been cold early and completely flipped around and had very warm winters overall. So statistically speaking we can’t really say much of anything going ahead right now just based on what November is.”
Todey says it’s hard to say exactly what’s going to happen. He says sometimes El Niños or La Niñas can help determine conditions.
“In this case we don’t have a strong El Nino impacting us,” Todey says. “There are some computer models that often can give us some guidance what the winter is looking like. The computer models are not agreeing very well. There are various indicators we can look at, and when at least some of those are saying one thing, we feel a little more confident in saying what will happen. This time the indicators are all over the place. So we really have to go, at times like this have to go, we really can’t say too much one way or the other.”
Todey says the cold has shifted for a few days so South Dakotans should see some relief.
He says the state could see a little snow early next week, with cold and windy conditions. He says that could make a travel a little difficult. But he says things should quiet down by Thanksgiving.
Click here to listen to the full discussion on Dakota Midday.