NORFOLK, Va. — Winter is right around the corner and NOAA has issued its seasonal outlook to give us a general feel for how the season may play out in terms of precipitation and temperature when compared with a 30-year average.
NOAA’s outlook points to a warmer and drier winter here in Hampton Roads. But what are our chances of snow potentially looking like?
A weak to moderate La Nina is favored to develop, this is colder than normal equatorial Pacific waters off the coast of Chile. This setup tends to favor a wetter and warmer winter for us, if we have an active storm track and it lines up with a surge of cold air, it could spell some snow chances.
Let’s look at history to guide us heading into this Winter. Since the 1950s there have been 18 occurrences during December, January, and February, the winter months that we’ve had a weak or moderate La Nina in play.
Guess what? We had 17 out of 18 winters of measurable snow in Hampton Roads! Of course, this is great news to hear for snow lovers, but it is not a sure bet. As you can see the most recent occurrence of a weak La Nina brought no snow at all.
The average snow during a weak La Nina was about 5.5 inches. In a moderate La Nina, that average rose to 7 inches.
It has been a while, 1,005 days to be exact, since Hampton Roads saw any measurable snow.
In fact, we are currently in the second-longest snow drought on record!
Will a developing weak or moderate La Nina deliver us snow this Winter? We shall soon find out. But based on past occurrences, the odds are more in our favor to snap this drought and see some beautiful snow!
