Weather
The United States has experienced a dramatic shift in weather conditions this November, going from a record-setting snowy start to one of the driest mid-Novembers in recent history. At the beginning of the month, certain regions reported the highest snowfall recorded for the start of November.
On November 1, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported snow covering 17.9 percent of the lower 48 states. This level of coverage was unprecedented, marking the most extensive early-November snow cover in at least two decades, particularly affecting the Rocky Mountains, northern Plains, Great Lakes, and northern New England. Last year, on November 1, snow-covered just 3.4 percent of the lower 48. The 20-year average snow cover over the lower 48 on November 1 is 5.5 percent, reports the Washington Post.
However, two weeks later, the NOAA’s Office of Winter Prediction reported that as of November 15, the continental U.S. had only 3.1% snow cover, the second-lowest on this date in over twenty years. The only time the map was more bare on that date was in 2016.
As reported by NOAA’s National Snow Analysis, the low snow cover follows a slow start to the 2023-24 snow season, with less than one percent coverage across the contiguous United States in early October. Brief heavy snowfall in some areas, such as the northern Cascades and northern Rockies, disrupted this pattern in mid-October.
El Niño is partly to blame for these unusual fluctuations. El Niño typically leads to warmer temperatures in various regions and has significantly influenced U.S. weather this year. Forecasters predict a warm, wet winter for the U.S., with less snow overall, though some areas, like the Mid-Atlantic, might experience more snow than usual.
It is still too early to correlate this early-season dry spell with how the season will turn out. There’s still plenty of time for the snow gods to deliver, so there is no need to panic. Yet.
