Minnesota’s Weather Outlook for Early Part of Winter

UNDATED (WJON News) -- The Climate Prediction Center has released its outlook for the early winter months of November, December, and January.

We've been hearing about an El Nino winter for several months now and this continues to look like it will be the case for the Upper Midwest.

A typical El Nino winter usually means warmer than normal temperatures and less than normal snowfall amounts.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources says there have only been two very strong El Niño events since 1950 (1982-83 and 1997-1998). Both had Meteorological Winters (December-February) that were in the top 6 warmest on record for the Twin Cities for 120 years of record

Right now the three-month period is showing above-normal temperatures.

Here in St. Cloud, we start the month of November with an average high temperature of 48 degrees.  December's average high to start the month is 32 degrees.  The average high on January 1st is 22 degrees.

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The Climate Prediction Center is also calling for average amounts of snow for much of Minnesota, possibly below normal snow for the state's northwestern corner.

St. Cloud averages six inches of snow in November, about eight inches of snow in December and about nine inches of snow in January.

The DNR says in general, Strong to Very Strong El Niño years had below normal snowfall with one exception. 1982-83 had two big snowfall events: 16.5 inches on December 27-28 that deflated the Metrodome the second time in its history and another 13.6 inch event on April 14, 1983

Average or below-average snow in Minnesota for the upcoming season might come as welcome news for many after the record-breaking 88.2 inches of snow that we had last winter.

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