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La Nina seems to be holding out on cooling us down
Every now and then, I like to mix things up and take the old Virginia- Ely Road in my travels. It’s narrow with a few sharp turns as everyone around here knows. My colleague, reporter Isabella Zadra, didn’t know much about the road but found herself on it a few weeks ago in one of our news trucks to do a news story about Cripple Critter Ranch. Of course, it had to snow so Isabella had a few white-knuckle moments driving a strange vehicle on a strange road.
Our winter road this year just may include normal snow conditions after last year’s snow drought. We keep saying that the La Nina effect is going to make us cooler and wetter than last year’s warm and dry El Nino winter. However, the effect still seems to be holding off.
December 2024 is shaping up to be a little warmer and a hair dryer than normal. Some sources think the Upper Midwest will be six degrees warmer than normal. That’s El Nino warmth! Other sources think our snow totals will only go towards five inches which is half of normal.
Evidence from November showed that we have beaten back the drought a bit so maybe we can tolerate a slightly dry December. The first to fourth should be cool and snowy. The fifth to 14th should mild with light snows. The 15th to the 18th could be warm enough for rain rather than snow. The 19th to 25th could be sunny, dry and warm. The 26th to 31st has a shot at going cold and snowy to finish the old year.
The new year just might start bitterly cold and snowy according to one of the popular almanacs. Maybe La Nina’s not sounding so good after all? That all depends on the thermometer and snow gauge of the beholder.
