This year’s winter outlook is not looking promising for the Northwoods tourism industry.
The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration released its Winter Seasonal Outlook for the U.S. this week.
This is how NOAA describes its outlooks: "NOAA’s monthly and seasonal climate outlooks do not predict the actual temperature or precipitation amounts for upcoming months or seasons. Instead, they predict the probability (percent chance) that upcoming monthly or seasonal average temperature or precipitation will fall in the top third, middle third, or bottom third of the climate record at a given place."
This year’s historically strong El Niño is expected to have an impact on winter weather. National Weather Service meteorologists stress that a strong El Niño doesn’t necessarily relate to the severity of impacts, it means a higher likelihood of impacts.
“El Niño can favor a more mild than average winter in the northern United States, but listen, even in the winter months, it doesn't mean you're not going to have snow. It doesn't mean you might not have a snowstorm, so it doesn't erase the risk,” said Ken Graham, the Director of NOAA's National Weather Service.
The Winter Seasonal Outlook calls for a 50-60% chance of above normal temperatures and 30-40% chance of below normal precipitation for northern Wisconsin and the western U.P.
That might sound familiar to some folks. It’s about what we saw in the 2023-24 winter when snowmobile trails never opened, ski races were canceled, and tourism businesses took a major a hit.
The Wisconsin State Climatology Office dubbed it a “Lost Winter”. It was the warmest winter on record. While there was some snowfall, the state was 20 to 60 inches below normal snowfall accumulation.
It was likely a combination of a strong El Niño and a long-term warning trend, according to the State Climatology Office’s summary of that winter.
Climate change has led to winters getting warmer with northern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula now experiencing an average five to six more unusually warm winter days since the 1970s.
When asked directly if the Upper Midwest was looking at a similar winter to that one, this is what NWS Meteorologist Jon Gottschlack had to say.
“I would want to go back and look just to confirm, but what we can expect with respect to the Wisconsin Upper Midwest area similar conditions to that, which were below normal seasonal precipitation, and below normal snowfall,” said Gottschlack. “It should be consistent with this year based on all the information we're seeing to date. So I would say loosely answering yes at this point.”
Again, this doesn’t mean it will be exactly like that winter or that we won’t get any snowstorms, just that there’s a greater chance for a drier, warmer than average winter.
Graham says while what snowfall our region will see is hard to predict, he hopes people in the tourism industry use the forecast to help plan.
“That's one of the one of the reasons that we do these forecasts to allow people to plan for that,” said Graham.
Northern Wisconsin and the western U.P. are currently experiencing severe drought conditions.
This winter outlook does not expect that to change this winter.
