OUTLOOK for the 2023-2024 Winter

While there is a lot of anticipation regarding what we will see regarding snow for the upcoming winter, I wanted to share my thoughts for Southern MD. Long range outlooks are often quite tricky to nail down, as there are many factors that affect how much snow we receive in a given winter. Some of these factors are challenging to predict more than a few weeks in advance, which means any snowfall outlook at this time range will inherently have a high degree of uncertainty.

With that being said, there is one factor in place that does lend to a higher level of confidence in our general weather for the upcoming winter. A strong El Nino is in place, which means that water temperatures are above average in the central and eastern Pacific. El Nino episodes usually bring increased precipitation for our area during the winter season. However, this does not always correlate to more snow, as we do often see more rainstorms as well in an El Nino winter.

On average, we see about 12 inches of snow in a given winter. As can be seen from one winter to another, there can certainly be a tremendous variation from year to year. I do expect that unlike last winter, there will be snow this time. I do also think there is a reasonable shot that we will reach average or possibly slightly above average amounts of snow.

As for temperatures, strong El Nino episodes tend to result in warmer winters for our area. However, I would still expect that we will see cold snaps.

​Forecaster Jason