The current El Nino event will fade in coming months, resulting in the stormiest and coldest winter weather pattern in recent years, with an area from southern New England through the Appalachians and Mid-Atlantic, including the Carolinas, being hit hardest, according to AccuWeather.com Chief Long Range Forecaster Joe Bastardi.

The fading El Nino pattern “will lead to a stormier and colder winter in the southern and eastern United States…[and] other factors are pointing to a winter very similar to that of 2002-2003,” Bastardi said.

The storm track that could develop this year will bring storms into Southern California, then across the South and up the eastern seaboard. New York, Boston and Philadelphia could all get up to 75% of their total snowfall in two or three big storms this winter, Bastardi said. Over the past two winters storms tended to take a track farther west from Texas into the Great Lakes, bringing unseasonably mild weather to major East Coast cities.

Areas from Atlanta to Charlotte could have several snowstorms this winter, while the Interstate 20 corridor from Dallas to Atlanta “will be a strike zone for ice and snow,” Bastardi said.

The Midwest and central Plains could see below-normal snowfall and temperatures averaging a bit milder than in past years, while a warm and somewhat dry weather pattern is expected from the Pacific Northwest into the northern Plains, he said. The barrage of winter storms that typically hit the Northwest may not occur this winter, but could be seen south in Southern California and portions of the Southwest.

In July, Bastardi said cooler-than-normal summer weather in the Northeast might be a hint that a cold, snowy winter was in store for an area stretching from Boston to Washington, DC (see Daily GPI, July 16). El Nino — the warming of surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, which can influence North American weather events — and recent worldwide volcanic activity may have played a role in the summer cooling trend, Bastardi said.

In a seasonal forecast issued last month, Andover, MA-based WSI Corp. said the final quarter of 2009 will bring cooler-than-normal temperatures to much of the Southeast and Central United States, but above-normal temperatures will dominate key Northeast heating markets for two of the three months (see Daily GPI, Sept. 22). In contrast to Bastardi’s forecast, WSI said a moderate El Nino event will probably continue through the winter.

The latest El Nino arrived at the end of June, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists (see Daily GPI, July 10). El Nino events, which occur every two to five years and typically last about 12 months, are believed to affect a variety of North American weather patterns.

Bastardi and other forecasters, including the NOAA and WSI, have said the latest El Nino has played a part in creating a relatively quiet 2009 Atlantic hurricane season (see Daily GPI, June 23).

A cold start to the winter season could snap natural gas storage inventories lower and send prices higher, but it will take a lot more to bring the overflowing storage situation back to a neutral level, Barclays Capital analysts said last week (see Daily GPI, Oct. 8). Only a 10% colder-than-normal winter over the 30-year average, they said, would bring storage balances “back to still near-record levels of last year.”

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