News On 6 Weather Experts: What To Expect This Winter

It may not feel like it, especially with our mild days, but winter will be here before we know it.

And, with the help of some fifth-grade students, Travis Meyer and our Weather Experts look at what nature and recent weather trends could mean for our winter ahead.

Five years ago, Green Country turned white, very white.

The 2011 blizzard and subsequent storms dumped nearly two feet of snow, paralyzing the region as long-standing records were smashed.

But, since then, we've had milder winters with much less snow and ice. In fact, four of the past five winters brought below normal snowfall; 2013 into 2014 is the only season where we managed to get above our 9.6-inch snowfall average in Tulsa.

With those winters in mind, we went up to Mrs. Eutsler's fifth-grade class in Dewey to share what nature has to say about the winter to come.

One thing we talked about the wooly worm, which intrigued many of the students.

Maura Johnson said, "I was kind of surprised by the wooly worm."

"I thought that every worm would have the same color," said Christopher Lindley.

We also checked out some of this year's Farmer Almanacs, even though they seemed to disagree with each other.

"Winter will be much warmer than normal," Meteorologist Mike Grogan read from one almanac. Another said, “Chilled to the bone and wet."

And, we opened up some persimmon seeds to look at their utensil-like shapes. Mike explained the legend, saying, "When you think of a knife, you think of just how piercing cold it could be."

Finally, the students weighed-in on what type of winter it will be.

"Snow and some ice," Johnson said. “It’s going to be cold, cold and colder.”

Lindley said, "Wet, very wet."

While the young forecasters are generally predicting a harsh winter, Mother Nature has been delayed in bringing us much colder air, so far.

"It's been a very warm summer and fall across eastern Oklahoma, but, before long, winter attire going to be normal. So what does it mean for winter forecasting as far as science is concerned,” asked Chief Meteorologist Travis Meyer?

Meteorologist Dick Faurot said, "Several things we're watching - and this is kind of some new areas of research. One of which is the amount of ice cover that's left over at the end of the summer melt season up in the Arctic Ocean. Right now, this past summer is one of the lowest on record. That has an early impact on the snow up in Siberia. And they've had a very early onset of the amount of snowfall and the aerial extent of the snowfall in Siberia. That, in turn, tends to affect the upper-level wind flow, the jet stream if you will, which then has a tendency to bring more cold air our way."

This leads us to believe we'll have a slightly colder than normal winter from Green Country to the northeast due to several major cold snaps, especially from December to January.

La Nina may also be a factor, which could counteract the Arctic air bringing us large temperature fluctuations.

A La Nina winter often leads to drier conditions in the southern U.S., including Oklahoma. The further south you live, the drier it may be.

However, a colder than normal winter enhances our risk of snow. And there's a good chance we'll see a big snowstorm or two, which could put our snow totals slightly above normal and, perhaps, over a foot.

As always, we stand the chance of seeing some ice this winter as well.

All said, our winter may be slightly harsher than the past few years; and as we all know, Mother Nature always has a few tricks up her sleeve.