To think I am posting about another upcoming winter season, despite being terribly wrong during the 2019/20 Winter Season & especially the 2015/16 Winter Season. But I am NOT God and only do weather outlooks for the New England region as an intense hobby. Besides, each winter season further humbles me, especially during times of inaccuracies, and I continue to learn. We turn the page to the upcoming 2020/21 Winter Season! But what have I learned NOT to repeat the same inaccuracies? I have learned that the 'Sun' or 9-11 year sunspot cycle needs to be carefully weighted in-respect to where we currently are in-the-cycle. For example, the sunspot cycle holds most weight concerning long-range outlooks when the Sun is at-the-dead but especially exiting-the-dead of a solar minimum. The strongest signal following the solar cycle is when the Sun is exiting-the-dead of a solar minimum due to strong presentation of atmospheric high latitude blocking... like the upcoming 2020/21 Winter Season. The solar cycle averages out to be exactly 10.66 years. This means that the Winter Seasons of 2010/11 & 2000/01; were also exiting-the-dead of a solar minimum. The trend is very clear what happened 10-years & 20-years ago during the noted winters, following this averaged 10-year cycle. Both winters experienced snowfall well above normal in North Adams, 50"-60" above normal snowfall (average season snowfall in North Adams, MA. is 78.1"), along with slightly below normal temperatures. We reviewed 2000/01 & 2010/11... dating back to 1974, 2000/01 was the snowiest winter & 2010/11 was the third snowiest winter in North Adams. Now, the 10-year anniversary is approaching, and yes, like the noted winter seasons the Sun is indeed exiting-the-dead of a solar minimum during 2020/21! Simply stated: strongly considering the noted factors there is greater than a 50% chance of above to well above normal snowfall and seasonal to slightly below normal temperatures in New England during the upcoming 2020/21 Winter Season. Forecaster: Daniel Viens, establishing author of New England NAO.
