Backing up the government’s winter forecast released last week, Rockville, MD-based EarthSat Energy Weather said Monday that it expects this winter to be colder than last year’s season, but still warmer than normal.

Derived via a consensus of the group’s 17 in-house meteorologists, EarthSat said the Dec.-Feb. outlook is 5% colder than last year on a national natural gas-weighted basis, but still 5% warmer than the 30-year normal (1971-2000).

In the group’s forecast, EarthSat calls for the Midcontinent, which includes the Midwest, Plains, and Texas, to be the warmest versus normal, while the East Coast is forecast to average close to normal. The Pacific Northwest and Western Canada are forecast to be seasonal to warmer than normal with seasonal to below-normal precipitation, while the Southwest and California are forecast be seasonal to cooler than normal with normal to above-normal precipitation.

Much like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) forecast last week, EarthSat manager Matt Rogers said the company’s forecast is largely steered by the El Nino conditions in the tropical Pacific. “We can blame El Nino for indications of a warmer Midcontinent, drier Northwest, and a wetter Southwest,” he said. “However, the strength of this event will determine the intensity of these correlations.”

Rogers pointed out that there are several risks to this current winter outlook, which will be addressed again in early November. “If the El Nino stays in its current weak state and the autumn continues to verify cooler than normal across North America, then I believe the odds increase for a colder-than-normal Eastern U.S. winter,” he said. “If the El Nino strengthens significantly in the next two months or if other factors change in the North Pacific, we could see a better chance for a warmer-than-forecast winter outcome. The [next] few weeks will be a very important bellwether to the coming season.”

EarthSat said it will update its winter outlook in early November.

Last week, NOAA predicted that the Lower 48 states could expect about 2% fewer heating degree days (HDD) than average this winter but about 5-10% more HDDs than last year’s very warm winter (see Daily GPI, Oct. 11).

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