Will It Be Cold In Alaska This Winter?

Frank asks:

Do you agree with the prediction?:

Prediction? What prediction? When I was a kid I always liked to read what various soothsayers and clairvoyants had to say about the future - folks like Jeanne Dixon and Harold Criswell. I guess I should take a look and see what Frank is asking about:

For what it’s worth, AccuWeather.com Chief Long-Range Meteorologist Joe Bastardi says we’re going to have a severe winter in Alaska. Our neighbors to the east will also be feeling the chill.

The “La Nina” has brought cooler water temperatures in the eastern Pacific, which will impact the weather to the north.

“The rapid cooling of the globe with the La Nina will produce severe cold for Alaska and northwest Canada, and in fact the Canadian winter will be as harsh as last year’s was gentle,” Bastardi said.

The Pacific Northwest, northern Plains and western Great Lakes should also expect colder weather, he says.

The National Weather Service says that El Nino and La Nina are part of a natural cycle. La Nina occurs every three to five years and is the “cool phase of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle, and is sometimes referred to as a Pacific cold episode. La Niña originally referred to an annual cooling of ocean waters off the west coast of Peru and Ecuador.”

Oh! A weather prediction! Specifically about Alaska!

I’ve been impressed how La Nina seems to translate into dry winters in the Southwest. It’s a pretty consistent pattern. El Nino is much more unpredictable, however.

Alaska, I don’t know. It’s pretty far away from the tropics and that mitigates La Nina’s impact.

I think I will disagree with his prediction, as an initial impression. I think he has the ridge too far west from where it would have to be to create a dry winter for the SW.

Where the long-wavelength Rossby waves end up being located has a much more influential effect on weather than either La Nina’s equatorial cooling or El Nino’s equatorial warming by themselves do.