Dear Tom,
Why do we never hear winter snow outlooks like we do temperature outlooks?
Ronnie Peterson
Dear Ronnie,
Such outlooks would yield erroneous information. Here’s the problem: A seasonal outlook considers only overall weather trends, but most snow that comes down in Chicago’s snowiest winters falls within a relatively short period that is meteorologically uncharacteristic of the winter as a whole. An outlook cannot address that issue.
Consider the winter of 1966-67. With the exception of a 12-day period centered on Jan. 31, the snow season delivered a sub-average 30″, but 38″ smothered the city in that one 12-day period. An outlook would have projected a “light-snow ” winter.
More recently, in 2000-01, four-fifths of the snow season (Nov., Jan., Feb., Mar.) brought only 14″ of snow, but 41″ buried the area in December.
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Tom Skilling is chief meteorologist at WGN-TV. His forecasts can be seen Monday through Friday on WGN-TV News at noon and 9 p.m.
Write to: ASK TOM WHY, 2501 Bradley Pl., Chicago, IL 60618 or asktomwhy@wgntv.com (Mail volume precludes personal response.)
WGN-TV meteorologists Steve Kahn, Richard Koeneman and Paul Dailey plus weather producer Bill Snyder contribute to this page.
