Our Winter Outlook for 2024-25 is calling for above normal temperatures in Central New York along with below normal snowfall for Syracuse, specifically 85”-115” which would be our snowiest winter since the beginning of the decade.
We know some of you want to look “under the hood” so to speak and get a deeper dive into our reasoning behind the Central New York Winter Outlook.
So here it goes….
Look west (very far west)
When making a seasonal outlook, we tend to look at patterns that take place quite a distance from Central New York and many times we land in the largest body of water on the planet, the Pacific Ocean. There seems to be connections between temperatures out there that play out with our winter weather.
First, we are coming out of a strong El Nino, which is warmer than normal waters in the Equatorial Pacific, and transitioning to a La Nina or cooler water in that same spot in the Pacific. You can see the cooler than normal waters show up as the blue ‘blob’ in the middle of this map below.