There’s no snow in our corner of the Upper Midwest, and it looks like it could be a brown Christmas, unfortunately. We’ve had some rain the last few days as temperatures hover around the freezing point. It’s been unusually warm for a few weeks now, and according to University of Minnesota climatologist and meteorologist Mark Seeley, who spoke this morning on Minnesota Public Radio, it’s expected to stay that way, on average, due to El Nino:

The NOAA Climate Prediction Center released the new seasonal climate
outlook on Thursday this week.  They considered the continuation of
the current El Nino episode into early next spring and as a consequence
forecasted above normal temperature conditions for Minnesota over
the January through March period. The outlook for precipitation during
the period suggests drier than normal condition in SE Minnesota,
and equal chances for wetter or drier than normal conditions for the
remainder of the state.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 22nd, 2006 at 2:20 pm and is filed under Minnesota, Weather, Winter.