Kenai Peninsula residents are forecast to see above-average temperatures this fall and into winter.
Rick Thoman with the National Weather Service…
Thoman: “Sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Alaska remain extremely warm compared to normal. We also have the strong El Nino in progress now and every indication is that will continue into the winter. Just those two factors alone for the Kenai Peninsula would strongly tilt the odds in favor of significantly warmer than normal.”
Precipitation for the next three months will likely be above average as well but Thoman said that is much more difficult to accurately forecast due to the Kenai Peninsula’s diverse geography.
We asked if that means another warm, snowless winter…
Thoman: “Snowfall is much harder to forecast, there’s practically no correlation between El Ninos and the amount of snow that ends up falling for the winter. And that’s not too surprising in the sense that just a couple to three storms can often account for a significant fraction of the snowfall and so which side of 32[degrees] that precipitation falls on is going to determine whether your snow ends up way below normal or near normal.”
The above average temperatures are forecast into December.
