ckoplien@todaystmj4.com

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Since writing about the winter outlook issued yesterday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), I've received several comments and questions.

They've gone something like this:

"What the use?"

And...

"Could they be less specific?"

The questioners have 100% valid points.  Long-range, seasonal outlooks like this are very general and leave plenty of gray area.

My responses to the questions above are:

"You're right...it's not much use."

And...

"Sure, they could be less specific, but they can't be much more specific."

Despite all of the advancements in weather forecasting over the past 100 years, the goings-on in the atmosphere continue to be far too complicated to be predicted 3 months in advance.  My goodness, as I'm sure you know, computer analyses and the smartest minds in meteorology still get fooled by the atmosphere even a few days in advance.

Meteorology remains an "emerging" science.  That is, we don't know everything about it.  There are new things being learned and discovered everyday. 

Like an athlete who isn't too good as a rookie, then improves each year he plays, weather forecasting gets better and better over time.  However, we're still in the middle of the race of figuring out everything that's going on in the air around us.  There are many, many more things that need to be learned and understood.  

In fact, 20 or 50 or 100 years from now, it's very possible that we still won't completely understand the atmosphere's workings.  Increasing skill in weather forecasting is somewhat analogous to the increasing skills of bowlers.  No matter how good of a bowler you become, you're still not going to roll 300 games every time.  Once in a while you may be perfect...but even professionals aren't perfect "frequently".

Now, professional bowlers are really, really good...better than Joe-Thursday-night-league-bowler-guy.  And the same thing goes for professional weather forecasters.  They are better than Joe-lick-your-finger-and-stick-it-up-in-the-air guy.

Still, no bowler, no matter how good, rolls 300s every time out.  There are too many variables.  To many things that can mess things up even a little...even when put one solid in the pocket.

The atmosphere is like that...so many variables.  There's a lot much going on up there.  The heating and cooling and moisture and spinning and lifting and descending and sunshine and pressure and evaporating and condensing...you get the idea.

As Crash Davis (Kevin Costner) in the movie "Bull Durham" told his team's pitching coach during a meeting on the mound:  "We're dealing with a lot of (blank)!."

So, when considering long-term weather trends, like the outlook for the entire winter, we're left with generalities and gray area.  That's the best that can be done right now.

The computer programs that attempt to see months into the future can do no better than give a broad overview of what the general weather pattern might be.  They can't be specific about any particular day or week.  The scientists who program the computer don't know enough...and the computers aren't powerful enough. 

The best they can do is attempt to identify if there are reasons a particular weather pattern may set up over the United States, and whether or not the pattern will be persistent.  If it is expected to be persistent, then there's some reason to believe a particular type of weather will be persistent.

But even when, say, a "warm" weather pattern looks as though it might be persistent across the Midwest, it doesn't mean that every day of the Wisconsin winter will be warm.  There are always ups and downs.  A persistent warm weather pattern should, however,  lead to more "warmer" days than "colder" ones over the long-run. 

What all of this leads to is NOAA scientists issuing an outlook that provides the probability of each of 3 types of weather:  above normal, below normal and near normal.

As I wrote yesterday, and you can read about here... http://www.todaystmj4.com/bloggers/craigkoplien/64362647.html ...Wisconsin has a higher probability of this winter's temperatures averaging above normal, then either below normal or near normal. 

But not by much.

And, in fact, if you add together the probability of temperatures "averaging near and below normal", you get a higher probability than that in the category of "averaging above".  So, in essence, you could say that there is a higher probability of temperatures averaging near or below normal, than above.

The NOAA outlook doesn't hedge either way on winter precipitation for us.  It says there are equal probabilities of precipitation being above normal (33.3%), below normal (33.3%) and below normal (33.3%)

You're right, it's not too specific.

You're right, it's not terribly helpful information.

But it is interesting.

(At least I think so.)

And it does give us at least a little nudge toward knowing what the winter might be like.

But it's far from a lock.

Here's the link to the NOAA site about the winter outlook:  http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/20091015_winteroutlook.html