What’s ahead: warmer winter or Polar Vortex?

B-r-r-r it’s getting cold out there!That was the sense of many as Dodge County temperatures slid into the 40s as most returned to work after the Labor Day weekend. Accompanied by light rain, the miserable index hit in the negative zone.
I picked up the September Successful Farming issue and on page 33 was dialed into Weather Trends where the lead headline reads: “Perfect Storm Spells Drought and Hurricanes?” Hurricanes don’t concern us in Dodge County. We’re more concerned about the prediction of dry conditions. Bill Kirk is CEO of Weather- Trends360 and he’s eyeing a La Niña weather patter as we head into the lat- ter months of 2020 and 2021. (La Niña is “simply the cooling of the equatorial Pacific Ocean and the opposite of the more well-known El Niño, which brings warmer-than-average ocean temperatures from Peru to Australia,” Kirk said.

Bottom line: we receive less precipitation over North America. La Niñas are credited with spawning other events, such as F3-F5 tornadoes.

Where does the National Weather Service line up with Kirk’s position?
We’re predicting a light winter for most of us here in the United States, with warmer-than-normal temperatures in the forecast for a large part of the country.
Most can live with that prediction, but what does The Old Farmer’s Almanac, which was founded in 1792, have to say about the upcoming winter?
“For the United States, we predict that recent warming trends will dominate in the eastern and northern parts of the United States in the coming winter, with below-normal average temperature limited to the western portion of the nation. Most of Canada will have a cold and snowy winter. However, rising temperature trends mean that the winter will not bring extreme cold; instead, it will be closer to normal,” got that?

Beginning on December 21, 2020, winter will begin and we’ll just have to wait to determine if whether Weathertrends360, the National Weather Service or The Old Farmer’s Almanac is correct in predicting the winter ahead.
I’m going out on a limb, but I’m going to predict the coming winter: we’re apt to have more snow than average and the Polar Vortex will sweep in from our Canadian friends to chill most of the Gopher state to the bone. (I’m not predicting that area golf courses will stay open until late December as they may have in the past.)

For most of us, we haven’t even put the lawn mower away, but with last week’s early morning lows, we may want to consider having the snowblower tuned up before Old Man Winter shows up.
Just remember, we’re looking ahead to a new year after experiencing several monumental challenges in what will certainly be consider one of the most disastrous years with impeachment of a president, coronavirus, school closures, mask wearing, social distancing and shutting down of “non-essential” businesses and churches.