ST. LOUIS — Mid-November, it hasn't really been cold at all in St. Louis. While it can certainly get colder than it has been by this point in the year, we are actually quite a ways from the raw parts of winter. But what can we expect from this winter season in the Bi-state area?
For our purposes, winter will refer to December, January and February. This is Meteorological Winter and is divided as such because the winter solstice is a different day and time each year. Regardless, it gets colder and snowier way before Dec. 21, anyway.
Last year, we focused on an El Niño pattern that was developing before the winter months. This brought us an overall dry and warmer winter. This year? Cooler temperatures in the equatorial Pacific lead to a different pattern: La Niña.
For more on how these patterns impact our weather in the central United States, be sure to check out our conversation with Missouri State Climatologist Zack Leasor in the attached video. That will give you a better idea of how those systems help us get a better idea for the long-term trends and also why they're not always a slam dunk.
So how much snow do we typically have? Our average is around 16 inches in the St. Louis area. We had a little over half that last year.
Weather Impact meteorologists' predictions
Let's start with Scott Connell's thoughts: Not quite as cold, lackluster snowfall and big swings in temperature and precipitation.
Jim says, "We can expect a mild winter with a limited amount of Arctic outbreaks. I like the number 11 .... so we are going with all 11s!"
Anthony agreed with Scott when it came to the "extremes." But he is expecting much more snow and much colder temperatures this winter season.
Tracy says we are going to see some early snow here in December and expects to even get a snow day! Her theme for the picks? Perfect 10s (and 10 below.)
Garry says that he has no reason to believe it won't be warm. We are teetering between the warmest and second-warmest year on record. We may run into those periods of drought, even in the winter. We did it last year, and I believe we are sort of stuck in that trend anyway. We still will get that brief shot of Arctic air here and there, with a little more snowfall than last year.
Collectively, all of our guesses for the first inch of snowfall in the St. Louis area range from early December to mid-January. There is a pretty good split in this regard.
We urge you to watch the 30-minute special we've prepared (find it above). It takes a deep dive into some of the forecasting difficulties of the winter, how things are changing recently and exactly why we picked some of the things we did.
Let us know if you have anything you'd like to know in the future! Send the Weather Impact team an email.