The Remainder Of Winter Weather Outlook In North Dakota

It's Ground Hogs Day in America.

This is when we look to a rodent to determine how much winter weather we have remaining this year.  If Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow, that means 6 more months of winter.  If the Woodchuck doesn't, that means we have 4 weeks of winter remaining.

This is always a laughable ritual in North Dakota because in just about any given year, we would gladly take 6 more weeks of winter.  For us, it's usually more like 8 weeks or even more.  It's not unusual for winter to hang on well into April, and sometimes we can see snow in May.

Not this year, however, I don't care what the Ground Hog sees today, spring is coming early.

By the way, weather experts claim that Punxsutawney Phil is only correct about 38% of the time.

In case you have noticed, we're already having spring in North Dakota.  The snow is basically gone over most of the state and we've been breaking all-time record highs in January, which is unusual, to say the least.

Let's see what the National Weather Service is saying about the remainder of winter in North Dakota.

As you can see by these maps, temperatures will remain above normal over the next 3 months in North Dakota.  That doesn't mean we won't have some cold snaps and maybe even a snowstorm or two, but this winter appears like it will go out like a lamb and not like a lion last year.

We've had so little snow this year, I'm sure there will be concerns about drought in the coming weeks.  Luckily, precipitation chances appear to be 50/50 for seasonal precipitation over the next 3 months.

I for one, hope that will come as rain and we can move on to spring quickly.  Take that Ground Hog.