While the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) continues to see a moderating influence of El Nino producing warmer than normal winter temps across the northern half of the country straight on through March 2003, other forecasters are pointing out that prediction has been wrong so far and will continue to be wrong.

NOAA, in its latest 30-day and 90-day forecasts, continued to point to a “moderate El Nino” working to hold off the flow of arctic air over the northern tier of the United States, and keeping temperatures above normal. But the government forecaster hedged a bit for January. While El Nino has been at work through the fall, NOAA said its effects have been offset by other factors, notably a “negative phase of the arctic oscillation(AO).” And “the sustained negative AO phase in the fall very slightly increases its odds of persisting into January,” which would mean cooler temperatures for the Southeast and East Coast.

Private sector forecasters have been putting more weight on other factors rather than the moderate El Nino, and have stuck with a colder than normal theme for the eastern U.S. They continue to be more definite in their cold weather predictions.

“We continue to remain confident that January 2003 will look very similar to December 2002 in terms of regional net temperatures,” forecasters at Weather 2000 said last week. “Our research still indicates that East of a line extending from approximately Dallas to Indianapolis, (or South of a curve connecting Houston to Cincinnati to Boston), has good chances of seeing a colder-than-normal January 2003.” The group pointed out that despite earlier warmer than normal predictions emerging from NOAA, December was wrapping up as the third consecutive colder than normal month for the eastern third of the nation.

Weather 2000 also sees a possible roof-raising end to the recent thaw. “December 2002 should go out with a stormy and wintry bang,” starting early next week and possibly culminating in “a Christmas-time Nor-Easter.” Santa may have to stable his reindeer and easterners will burn the coal in their Christmas stockings if Weather 2000 is right about a scourge that “should lash the Southern states with severe thunderstorms and flooding rains, the Appalachians and Mid-Atlantic with a wintry-mix of rain, ice, sleet and snow, and potentially substantial snow for the Northeast.”

Salomon Smith Barney’s meteorologists expect nothing that drastic, merely a return to normal December temperatures after the recent warm-up. There should be colder conditions and below normal temperatures for the central and eastern U.S., however, in early January.

Meanwhile SSB notes most cities across the U.S. (except the West Coast) have been racking up an excess of heating degree days. New York is running 13% above normal, with Philadelphia and Washington DC 8% and 10% above normal respectively. Heating degree days in Chicago and Denver were just 4% and 5% above normal, respectively, while Dallas came in at 10% above normal.

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