Seasonal Weather Outlook Update: Warm Fall, Then Colder Early Winter in Northeast

WSI, the industrial weather forecasting subsidiary of The Weather Channel, announced exclusively on CNBC this morning (video unavailable) that its updated seasonal weather outlook calls for a warm remainder of the fall over much of the northern U.S. followed by colder weather in December:

"The combination of the La Nina event, a relatively cold north Pacific, and a record warm north Atlantic are quite bullish for a very warm October, especially across the northeastern quarter of the country" said WSI Chief Meteorologist Dr. Todd Crawford. However, the historically persistent negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation and the strength of the North Pacific climate signals suggest that the widespread warmth in October will be short-lived with more widespread cold across the eastern US in November and December. For the October-December period as a whole, we are forecasting 1776 gas-weighted heating degree days, within 1-2% of both last year and the 1971-2000 mean."

The latest 90-day outlook for October-December 2010 from NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, shown in the image, calls for more widespread warmth, especially over the central and southwestern portions of the country.