AUSTIN (KXAN) — This winter has been hard to sum up in a sentence. December was the second warmest December on record, followed by a much colder-than-normal January with snow.
February is here and odds seem primed to flip us back to the warm side of the scale, at least for the majority of the time.
Winter so far
December was 6.0 degrees warmer than normal and yet January was 5.3 degrees colder than normal. Both December and January were drier than normal.
What does that mean for the first two months of winter?
It means that winter (so far) is running an average of 0.4 degrees above normal as the first two months of winter attempt to offset each other.
Unfortunately both December and January told a similar picture from a rainfall perspective. Both were drier than normal bringing us a rainfall deficit for the season so far to 2″+ with February not included.
A drier and warmer than normal winter is a prime example of a “typical” La Niña winter in Central Texas.
The final February forecast released
Last Friday, Jan. 31, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center released its final February forecast calling for a warmer-than-normal month with rainfall expectations near normal.
The odds of a drier-than-normal February start to creep up southwest of Austin.
So here’s how we think this short month should turn out…
Week one of February:
We’re already into week one of February and it’s safe to say we’ll end it way warmer than normal with highs in the 70s or 80s the first seven days of the month (through Saturday, Feb. 7).
During this time we may get spotty morning drizzle, but otherwise, our first week of February looks dry until early next week.
Week two of February:
The second week of February should be a polar opposite to the first with a wetter and cooler pattern returning.
This means that rain, or storms, could be part of your Valentine’s Day weekend. We may see severe weather return, as is sometimes the case in February.
While we can’t rule out patchy freezes, we’re still not seeing widespread freezes in our forecast during this cooler middle of February period.
Final two weeks of February:
Long-term weather forecasting is notoriously difficult, especially when trying to be specific, but our current expectations for the third week of February are on the cool side with a gradual return to normal temperatures for the final week of February.
Precipitation outlooks for the final two weeks of February lean back toward the dry scale. February is usually our driest month of the year so we don’t expect much for February, but we can start getting some severe weather in February as we near the beginning of severe weather season on March 1.
