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Yesterday veteran meteorologist Joe Bastardi brought to our attention an article by the Washington Post here, where it reports forecasters are warning that the coming winter “could get nasty” for the Washington D.C. area.

Although the National Weather Service predicts “equal chances of a cold or mild winter”, private meteorologists warn the winter could get bitter. There’s a real debate going on.

The Post cites meteorologist Judah Cohen, who uses the Arctic Oscillation as a predictor of winters, writing that greater-than-normal October Eurasian snow cover tends to lead to large blocking highs that steer cold air southwards into the middle latitude regions.

Early winter for Europe?

After a summerlike warm September in Central Europe, things have cooled down significantly, with Central European temperatures running below normal so far this October. German climate skeptic site wobleibtdieerderwaermung.de here writes that there are now signs of an early winter hitting Central Europe, with freezing temperatures and snow forecast for early November.

Current models show a major storm positioned over northeast Europe, which would send a large mass of cold air with temperatures at -35°C at the 5500m level (500 hPa) over large parts of Europe:

Source: http://old.wetterzentrale.de/topkarten/fsavneur.html

What follows is the forecast 2m temperature chart for November 1st:

Today’s GFS model runs (below) also continue to show cold setting in early November:

Source: www.wetteronline.de=gfs.

This forecast is 10 – 15 days out, and so naturally there is a fair amount of uncertainty involved. But it tells Europeans that maybe it’s a good idea not to delay putting the winter tires on. Snow is hardly a thing of the past.

The cold temperatures would lead to precipitation likely falling as snow, even in the lowland regions:

12 billion tonnes of ice in a single day!

One thing is certain: Greenland just got bombed by a “record” snowfall (hat-tip: wobleibtdieglobaleerwaermung), thanks to what used to be hurricane Nicole. some 12 billion tonnes of “record ice growth in a single day” – see chart:

Top: The total daily contribution to the surface mass balance from the entire ice sheet (blue line, Gt/day). Bottom: The accumulated surface mass balance from September 1st to now (blue line, Gt) and the season 2011-12 (red) which had very high summer melt in Greenland. For comparison, the mean curve from the period 1990-2013 is shown (dark grey). The same calendar day in each of the 24 years (in the period 1990-2013) will have its own value. These differences from year to year are illustrated by the light grey band. For each calendar day, however, the lowest and highest values of the 24 years have been left out.” Source: http://www.dmi.dk/en/groenland/maalinger/greenland-ice-sheet-surface-mass-budget/