As many records feel over the summer months it looks like we may be nearing another as we edge closer and closer to December. There have been a few days where flurries or even light snow has fallen but other than just giving it a holiday feel we really haven't dealt with much measurable snow. Meteorologist Brandon Arnold posted Tuesday that we were nearing the top 5 for the longest stretch without measurable snowfall. Well, today we made it to day 271 without measurable snow; measurable snow meaning over a tenth of an inch. Usually around this time there has been something we've had to shovel, or at least dust off, our doorstep. This puts this year in the top 4! The longest stretch on record was back in 1922 with 287 days without measurable snowfall.
Unfortunately, the pattern through midweek of next week looks to keep any precipitation in the liquid form but that pattern may begin to change during the second week of December. There has been some fairly cold air in Alaska and northern Canada that we really haven't tapped into and with a pattern change we may be able to pull at least some of that down across the northern tier of the United States. With the lack of any rainfall, or snowfall, the latest issuance of the drought monitor indicates conditions have either stayed the same from the previous week or have slightly worsened. Going into the winter season it's never good to have as significant of a deficit as we currently do. The extreme heat and drought over the summer really took out a lot of the moisture in the first several inches of soil. Snowfall is vital come springtime and if the snow doesn't add up it may only help to worsen the drought. It has yet to been seen just how the current drought will affect temperatures and precipitation going into December, January and February and it's kind of hard to say now whether this winter will end up warm and dry like years past. With ENSO neutral conditions having develop over the past month this winter could go either way.
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