By Joseph D’Aleo, CCM

This winter as most of you have heard, we are experiencing a La Nina and that normally means on average a warm winter for most of the populous eastern and southern United States. NOAA and most private forecast services reflect this in their outlook though a few have a cold start to the winter. For the winter as a whole, most forecasts have cold air restricted to the Pacific Northwest.

In the attached we discuss why we think they may be overplaying the warm card this year. This may be one of te rare La Nina years when the pther factors conspire to suppress that eastern warmth to the deep south and make for a much colder winter where they are heavy users of energy. Not good news for consumers - individuals or businesses especially given where energy prices are already.

There will be good news finally for ski areas across the northern tier which have more years than not had rough sledding during three decades of mainly El Nino southern storm tracks.

See why we think this may be the pattern for a good chunk of the winter for the temperatures here.  Note cold and snow will come at times to the northwestern and northern Rockies but will, in time, linger longest further east.