snowman99's Blog

OK, here's my winter "forecast". This will be a fairly general forecast for the STL area, and is based on some things I've read and looked at the past few weeks, current weather patterns and hunches of my own. So take it all with a grain of salt.

Anyway it looks like winter will get off to a pretty early start this year. Novemeber looks fairly cold especially early and middle of the month. Our forst flakes could fly the first couple weeks, probably nothing big though. I think we'll have a warm up around Thanksgiving for a week or 2, not astoundingly warm but a bit above average probably around 55 or 60.
December is going to be hard core winter I think. I really believe this month could be one of the hardest winter months we've had in many years. Pretty much the whole month will be colder than normal, especially after the first few days with brutal arctic surges coming in at pretty regular intervals. Now Lambert Field has not been below 0 in about 10 years, I think that changes in December, with maybe several sub-zero days. We may flirt with some record cold but the records are pretty darn low, so it's not a sure thing. Precip wise in December expect a fair amount of snow, maybe some ice.

A couple of decent storms are possible, but actually most of the snow will come from clippers as we are in a NW flow for a good part of the month, maybe several 1-3 or 2-4 inch type snows. Ice will become a factor when the warm air tries to come back in over the cold, probably more towards the end of the month. I believe the chances of a white Christmas is pretty good, I give it a 70% chance right now.

January will start off pretty cold, but I believe warm up especially about the 10th of the month and after. It'll probably end up around normal temp wise, nothing too extreme. Precip will be a little more interesting, probably a few decent storms coming out of the SW. We may warm up enough to see rain a couple times but a big ol' snowstorm is very possible, I'm thinking in the last week.

February will probably start off mild, then get colder around the middle of the month, and continue thru the end. All in all probably around normal again temp wise. Snow will be around, especially the last 2 weeks, maybe a couple snows, even a big one around the middle of the month, as we turn colder again. Ice doesn't look like a big threat.

So in conclusion, the roughest month will be December-temps well below normal snowfall-above normal, white Christmas likely.
January-around normal temp wise. Snow- I'll say above normal bust most of that coming in 1 storm, with some rain also during the month.
February- around normal again, maybe slightly above normal temps..snowfall I'll say around normal as well.
The winter as a whole will be below normal temp wise, thanks to December, and snowfall will be a bit above normal. But don't expect the hyper-active setup we had last year, more clippers though, and a few SW storms. Should be a pretty interesting winter. I'm sure I will be proven completely wrong in just a matter of weeks, lol.

Dear Glenn,

Watching you on the news on the evening of Tuesday, August 26th I heard some things that were quite concerning. When speaking of hurricane Gustav you were saying things like "it's a very large hurricane", and "it's taking a very concerning track", and worst of all "it could be as big as Katrina".  Now I am not a meteorologist, but I am a weather nut, and right now Gustav is NOT a big hurricane, it barely is a hurricane actually after crossing Haiti.

Could Gustav strenghthen to a major hurricane, shoot yes, and I'm sure it will maybe a category 4 or even a 5.  Yes a cat 5 is what Katrina was well before landfall, but it only made landfall as a cat 3. Saying the name "Katrina"  is very inappropriate when comparing that storm with Gustav. There is no comparison. Katrina was one of the worst natural disasters this country has ever seen, we are yet to see what Gustav does.  I believe you saying that was just used to shock people and get there attention, but there's better ways to do that.

As for the track which the HPC takes into the central Gulf right now, that track forecast will change many many times over the next 5 days before Gustav is even a threat to the US.  I know it'll change, you know it'll change, but some of the average people out there who aren't "weather weenies" don't necessarily know that.  And saying  a big destructive storm is heading in the direction of New Orleans at this point is just not proper. If we get to withing 24-48 hours and it's making a beeline towards New Orleans then fine, but 6 or 7 days out it is IMPOSSIBLE to say where this thing is going. It has just as good of chance of hittinfg Brownsville, Houston, Mobile or the Florida panhandle or anywhere in between at this point. People here in the St. Louis area with family or friends in New Orleans may have heard you say that and are now very worried about what may or may not happen.

If it becomes more likely in the next several days it will hit New Orleans then hype it, but please don't do it unnecessarily. The people of New Orleans don't deserve it, they have been through enough. I'm very glad no one along the gulf coast heard you say that.

I mean no disrespect as you are the met and I am not, it just seemed not quite right to me.  Thank you for your time and feel free to respond.

Ok, everyone, it's that time of year again. Time to make your New Year's resolutions, whether they last a day or the whole year, lot's of people do it.  I think for mine, considering I'm a huge weather nut, I am going to stop looking at off hour model runs and not get my hopes up for a snowstorm unless it's 18 hours or less away. I will also try to be more patient with customers at my store..haha.

So what are all of your resolutions?