Does November offer clues for the upcoming winter?

 

A frigid winter's night in Bethesda, Maryland

The nation’s capital has had four consecutive drier than average months and three consecutive cooler ones leading up to November. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center expects some warmer than average weather during the final week of November combined with near to above average rainfall. However, given how dry the first half of the month has been, the second half of November would have to be much wetter than average for the nation’s capital to have its first wetter than average month since June.

Meanwhile, some may wonder whether a drier than average November foreshadows what the upcoming winter season will be like. There have been some winters when November’s weather in the nation’s capital did, in fact, do that. Such was the case during the 1995-1996 winter season. November 1995 was 6.8° colder than average in Washington, D.C. with 0.5” of snow. As longtime Washingtonians may recall, 1995-1996 was DC’s third snowiest winter on record with a total of 46”. That winter season was also 4.4° colder than average and occurred during a moderate episode of La Nina.

On the other hand, November 2009 was 2.3° warmer than average and was also wetter than average in Washington, D.C., but gave way to DC’s snowiest winter. A total of 56.1” of snow fell in the nation’s capital during the 2009-2010 season. That winter was also 3.9° colder than average. However, unlike the 1995-1996 La Nina winter, it featured a moderate intensity episode of El Nino. One of El Nino’s hallmarks is an active southern branch of the jet stream that can play a key role in winter coastal storms for the eastern United States.

More recently, November 2024 was DC’s warmest on record having finished 5.3° warmer than average and was also a drier than average month. However, last winter was both colder and snowier than average in the nation’s capital. Weak La Nina conditions were present last winter.

These examples illustrate that while November’s weather sometimes serves as a harbinger of what the upcoming winter might be like, no accurate conclusions can be drawn based on it. There are simply too many variables to rely solely on November weather as a predictor. La Nina conditions are currently present and NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center expects them to continue until early next year. Consequently, NOAA’s Winter Weather Outlook is for above average temperatures in the DMV (DC, Maryland and Virginia) with near to below average precipitation.