It’s been 18% warmer this heating season than the 10-year average and 26% warmer than last year and WSI Corp. is predicting more of the same for the major population centers along the East Coast and Florida as well as the Southwest, for the rest of the season. Cooler-than-normal weather is predicted in the Plains, Great Lakes states, Pacific Northwest and the coastal sections of California, said WSI, which issued an end-of-November update to its seasonal forecast.

For the marketplace, WSI said the winter 2001/2002 outlook “paints a less bullish picture for the December-January period in the Northeast — compared to last year’s frigid, record cold temperatures that sent natural gas and power prices soaring.” This winter by contrast should be milder and “much less volatile.”

WSI expects the following monthly trends:

“The expectation of warmer-than-normal temperatures in the major cities in the East is different from the CPC (Climate Prediction Center) outlook, in which no forecast was made for the East,” said Todd Crawford, WSI’s seasonal forecaster.

WSI was one of the few services to accurately predict a warm November in the Northeast and the United States overall, and its three-month seasonal forecasts have been accurate for seven of the last eight periods, it said. WSI issued its season weather advisories twice monthly.

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