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Our meteorologists predict weather months ahead. Here's how

Visit this Fall Forecast Guide to the Season for the Fall Forecast, Winter Weather Preview and more.


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    Digital writers
    theweathernetwork.com

    Sunday, September 13, 2015, 8:50 PM - The strengthening El Niño will likely become one of the strongest on record when it peaks in the coming months and this “blob” of warm water in the Pacific continues to have far-reaching effects on our weather.

    Already, these patterns have impacted our weather through the summer with record heat, disastrous drought, and wildfires in some places, while it was unseasonably cold and wet in others.

    What does this mean for the seasons to come? The Weather Network revealed all on Aug. 31 in this 2015 Fall Weather Forecast and Winter Preview for 2015-16.

    Meteorologist Dr. Doug Gillham explains how forecasters predict the weather months in the future.

    How do you peer so far ahead?

    Developing our seasonal forecasts involves a consistent tracking of weather and ocean water temperature patterns around the world. We look for signs that current patterns will continue or whether they will change as we progress into the next season and beyond. To have the best chance at doing this successfully, one must follow global weather patterns throughout the year.

    What tools do you use?

    Weather services around the world produce a number of different computer models that assist us in determining to what extent the current pattern will persist versus how it will change during the weeks and months ahead. Understanding the pattern and how it should evolve is critical to being successful, as the models will often disagree with each other or come up with a forecast that does not make sense meteorologically.

    We also seek to identify years in the past that had similar global weather and sea surface temperature patterns and study the weather patterns across North America that were associated with those years. For example, for the upcoming fall and winter forecasts we will be looking back at other years that had a similar El Niño pattern and look to see what those seasons looked like.

    Years in the past that had similar patterns to our current patterns are called analogue years. Identifying the correct analogue years and researching their associated weather patterns will usually be more helpful than the computer models when it comes to forecasting the weather patterns for upcoming seasons.

    What clues can be found in the weather from the summer to forecast the fall and winter?

    The summer weather pattern usually does not tell us very much about the upcoming fall and winter seasons. While there are many examples of hot summers that were followed by mild winters (and vice versa), there are also many examples of hot summers that were followed cold winters.  However, temperature patterns during the summer and fall do impact water temperatures in the Great Lakes, which does have an impact on the lake effect snow season.

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