A winter outlook so to speak..

In the past I have done a more in depth write up and conveyed more "personal"ideas about what may happen in the upcoming winter. In General, long range at some levels is more of a "good guess" area rather than skill. Often I read many outlooks then do some local research and put out a forecast. This year,  I have some ideas

This year we have two schools of thought.

1. Normal "La nina" winters which would favor milder tems and less snow/dry. 

2. Other impacted "La Nina "winters which would feature more snow/maybe more snow. 

- Other impacts are the QBO, Hurricane season and global SST's. 

Analog years are harder in the context of weather or not you are a "believer" in some type of climate change, the globe is very warm and this does impact our sensible weather.  You could go above normal temps in an season at this point and be correct maybe 80% of the time. 

For our area (Lynchburg, Roanoke, Danville, Blacksburg) I'm to hedge colder, with below normal snow, but due to ice/mix and dryness. 

Temps- All Areas Normal to -1. I do think we see a couple of significant artic outbreaks. Let's be honest, if our lows are in the single digits with wind chills, kids are getting snow/Cold  days  from school. 

Snowfall- 

Danville 2-12 inches

Lynchburg 5 to 15 inches

Roanoke 7 to 17 inches

Blacksburg 11-21 inches. 

Upslope regions will be above normal (those places that just snow when it's cold)

Why the weird snowfall range?

La Nina winters tend to lack  the sub tropical Jet.  With that you tend to have system that are a smidge to north for our region. Storm track may feature systems going into eastern Kentucky then jump to the coast north of our region. Those are classic snow to mix or just mix events here. The risk for increase blocking could push those to our south under the block and increase our snowfall.

Snowfall is a guess at best, so take that for a grain of salt. I'd expect a little drier than normal winter. IF we over achieve on blocking (Blocking up north pushes cold air south) during an active storm pattern, we could easily over achieve on snowfall.

Be ready for frequent twitter, facebook and blog updates when pattern changes arive. We should remain seasonable chilly for the rest of the month. Good bet that we remain snow/ice free through mid December.