You Want Even More Ice With That?

Christmas Eve is going to be warm and rainy in New Jersey, and Christmas Day could feel more like Easter, with temperatures pushing 70 degrees Fahrenheit.  But despite the promise of a milder winter this year because of El Niño, I'm still worried by the possibility of an ice storm . . . which El Niño, ironically, could cause.

The reason I fear getting conditions like the ice storm depicted in the picture above (for the record, this is Oklahoma in late 2007) is because while El Niño will allow for milder air in January and February, some of that milder air might be aloft while ground temperatures could be below freezing.  And if it rains under those conditions, any rain that falls will freeze the nanosecond it hits the ground.  And, in its long-range forecast, AccuWeather.com is suggesting that we could get a little freezing rain in my area come mid-January.  Well, maybe just over half an inch of it . . .

Anything over half an inch is catastrophic.  It could mean power outages, icy thoroughfares, and no relief from either for days.  If we get what AccuWeather.com currently is suggesting, we in northern New Jersey could be in big trouble.

To be fair, this forecast is for three weeks out, and long-range forecasts tend to fluctuate.  The forecast for mid-January at this point could change to less icing, sleet, snow, or nothing at all.  And to top it all off, AccuWeather.com is actually giving noticeably smaller ice accretions for other New Jersey towns, including the one right next to mine.  But I am worried.  Two weeks ago, the AccuWeather site predicted even worse icing for mid-January, than it ruled out any icing one week ago, and this week, it's ruled it back in.  And the forecasters seem to be bullish on some sort of ice "event" happening.  The only bright side regarding this forecast is that it is three weeks out, and . . . it's from AccuWeather!  The forecasting service has more often than not failed to live up to its name, and its long-range forecasts are known in the weather prediction profession to be a joke, rarely getting anything even remotely right, let alone exactly right.  AccuWeather, for its part, says that users of their long-range forecasts should only be used to observe general trends in the forecast period.  Except that the Washington Post noted that the service's 45-day forecast can't even predict general trends accurately.

Nevertheless, there is an agreement among weather people that a cooling trend in January is likely after this warm holiday season.  And while AccuWeather may not be right all the time, it could be right this time in predicting mid-January ice storm.  It's that variable that will keep me worried for awhile.