ROCKINGHAM — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted last week that a strong El Nino pattern will bring the southeast a cooler than average winter with above average amounts of precipitation.

Kathleen Carroll, meteorologist with National Weather Service in Raleigh, said it’s nearly impossible to know whether the expected conditions will result in more snow than the area received last season.

“Essentially, when you’ve got an El Nino, what that means for the winter time is that typically we see more troughiness,” Carroll said. “That determines the storm track, and that is what sets up the boundaries that can carry upper level disturbances along a path. Anything east of that trough is going to get the moisture. It may be that you have a trough in the Mississippi River Valley, and we will be on the east side of that trough which would mean we will see more storms that would yield more precipitation.”

As to what form that precipitation might take, Carroll said that’s the tricky part.

“There’s no way to tell,” she said. “So much depends on the timing of the cold air’s arrival and the amount of moisture east of the trough, and it’s hard to predict this far out. It’s system-dependent with the timing of the cold air.”

The State Climate Office of North Carolina ranked last December through February as being the 40th-coolest and 33rd-driest winter statewide in 120 years of climate data recording.

According to NOAA, other factors that have a strong impact on winter weather include the Arctic Oscillation that has an influence on the number of arctic air masses that plunge into the south — and the frequency of nor’easters along the east coast.

There have been times in Richmond County when residents have watched as snow covered their lawns, only to find that the Weather Channel is showing no precipitation on the radar. Carroll knows the reason for that.

“Particularly down in Richmond County, we don’t have as dense of a network (of radar equipment),” she said. “And you need to have radar that can see low on the ground. For some reason, the county falls into an area that’s hard to pick up on. So a lot of times we don’t have an idea things are happening down there until we start getting reports from people in the area calling in and saying, ‘Hey, it’s snowing here.”

Carroll said regional observers and automated weather reporting sites dot all areas of the state, helping NOAA and NWS to monitor conditions as they change, and that with winter weather it can be especially challenging and unpredictable.

“We do keep track of all the different observers we have,”Carroll said. “We do have one automated site out there at the airport called an automated weather observing station. It’s got sensors on it for a variety of things such as temperature and dew point, estimations of cloud cover up to 10,000 feet, visibility, what type of precipitation it thinks is falling, and wind speed and direction. We have a lot of measures taken that way, and we get maybe one per county of those units.”

Carroll also noted that, for some reason, a weather station at the Laurinburg/Maxton Airport is used as Richmond County’s nearest weather reporting station, which is often off-base.

“Temperatures between there and here often differ by 5 degrees or more,” she said. “And Richmond County of course is farther north and west, so it’s usually colder and more likely to experience snow instead of rain or freezing rain, depending on conditions.”

Reach reporter Melonie McLaurin at 910-817-2673 and follow her on Twitter @melonieflomer.

Melonie McLaurin | Daily Journal The State Climate Office of North Carolina ranked last winter as being the 40th-coolest and 33rd-driest statewide in 120 years of climate data recording.
https://www.yourdailyjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/web1_IMG_1815.jpgMelonie McLaurin | Daily Journal The State Climate Office of North Carolina ranked last winter as being the 40th-coolest and 33rd-driest statewide in 120 years of climate data recording.

Melonie McLaurin | Daily Journal The National Weather Service in Raleigh predicts higher than average precipitation in the Sandhills this winter.
https://www.yourdailyjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/web1_IMG_1819.jpgMelonie McLaurin | Daily Journal The National Weather Service in Raleigh predicts higher than average precipitation in the Sandhills this winter.

By Melonie McLaurin

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