El Niño weather expected to deliver warmer, drier winter to Lansing

LANSING — Andrew Cleveland hopes this winter will get cold enough to kill off a bunch of mosquitoes.

"I'm hoping we get a good cold spell so all the bugs that are supposed to die die," the Bellevue resident said.

He may not get his wish. Experts are predicting a warmer and less snowy winter in Michigan this year due to El Niño conditions. And some of those pesky mosquitoes are known to hibernate.

This winter's Michigan outlook is expected to be a few degrees warmer than average and with less snowfall, according to meteorologists with the National Weather Service in Grand Rapids.

Normal years in Michigan will see highs hovering around freezing — 32 or 33 degrees — but this year it is more likely to be in the mid- or upper-30s, with typical lows also being warmer than the normal teens or low 20s, said Brandon Hoving, a National Weather Service meteorologist based in Grand Rapids, where he helps lead forecasts that include Lansing.

In terms of snowfall, there should be fewer long-lasting snowstorms and overall less depth, Hoving said. Hoving said he's expecting less lake-effect snow and lighter snowfall in the Greater Lansing area.

The Lansing area's norm is about 4 inches in November, up to 14 inches for the months of December, January, and February and about 6 inches in March, according to federal climate data from 1991 through last year.

Hoving almost didn't renew his driveway snowplow service for this winter considering the potential El Niño effect. Then he did.

"It's still coming," Hoving said of winter and snow. "Certainly the odds favor a warmer than normal winter. It would be quite unusual to get a colder than usual winter. We’re in an El Niño effect and it should continue the entire winter with ocean temps well above normal. In a strong El Niño, temperatures are much warmer for us in Michigan, on average."

Greater Lansing experienced some of winter's normal gloom this past week. There was rain and grey skies. But still no accumulated snow.

The Lansing area averages a high of about 33 degrees and a low of about 19 degrees during December, January and February with temperatures that tend to get colder through February, according to National Weather Service data.

While Greater Lansing residents brace themselves for another winter, Douglas Steffen, managing director of the Clinton County Road Commission, said, as usual for this time of year, the commission has about 4,000 tons of salt, a couple thousand tons of sand and 12,000 gallons of liquid de-icers to deal with wintry road conditions.

He’s confident the road commission is ready for whatever an El Nino winter throws from the skies.

“We try not to overreact,” he said. “The less we spend on winter, the more there is for construction projects and paving.”

Despite back-to-back storms that caused hundreds of thousands of outages throughout southern lower Michigan around the end of last winter, BWL is preparing as it normally would. The utility serving approximately 100,000 electric customers and 58,000 water customers throughout Greater Lansing has a year-round, any-season preparedness plan focused on routine tree trimming, equipment maintenance and mutual aid contracts, Amy Adamy, the utility’s spokesperson, said in an email.

“BWL is prepared for any weather that may come into the region, including an ice storm,” she said. And, “warmer temperatures in the winter usually mean lower energy demand, which means lower electric bills for our customers.”

Less snow, less winter

The latest National Weather Service forecast calls for rain or possibly snow on Sunday with temperatures between 37 and 28 degrees, with a cloudy and cool Monday.

Winter definitely has been making a stronger presence elsewhere.

The end of the harvest season came with a Halloween snowstorm on Oct. 30 into Nov. 1, with up to 10 inches in some places, especially on the western shore of Michigan. Trick-or-treating was canceled in North Muskegon. In metro Detroit, the snowfall was far less. There was as much as 1.8 inches in Lake Orion, 1.4 inches in Lapeer and a little more than an inch in Flint. Two-tenths of an inch was recorded for Lansing on Halloween, which amounted to the city's total seasonal snowfall, Hoving said.

Despite the wintry precipitation in some places, the year so far has been on the El Niño track — warmer than normal, Jeff Andresen, a Michigan State University meteorology professor and the state climatologist for Michigan, said in a weather update.

Andresen said any remaining fall harvest work should accompany more mild temperatures than normal and the month is expected to continue with either normal or below average precipitation.

"The seasonal outlooks for the upcoming winter months are heavily influenced by El Niño and call for milder-than-normal winter mean temperatures, below-normal precipitation, and below-normal seasonal snowfall totals," he said.

Michigan's snow and winter cold can be predicted by looking at the temperature of the ocean near the equator, where there is an El Niño effect, a natural warming of ocean water in the Pacific Ocean.

Nationally, a potentially potent El Niño is expected to mean more snow in lower parts of the U.S., including Colorado, but less for the Great Plains and the Great Lakes regions.

Looking back at what happened during past El Niño winters gives meteorologists a guide to what may happen this winter, forecasters say, with a caveat: "El Niño nudges the odds in favor of certain climate outcomes, but never ensures them," Michelle L'Heureux, a climate scientist with NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, said in a recent blog post.

Hoving said El Niño, for Michigan, should mean less snow and warmer temperatures, as it has in past years but there could be an exception.

"Once every great while you do get that weird pattern in the winter where El Niño gets overruled by various things in the atmosphere but that's not what we’re looking at this winter," he said. "So we're still going to get below freezing a lot, but during the day. That should help to improve road conditions.

"We're looking at two- to three-day periods of arctic air that come in and get booted out, with a strong El Niño, it tends to reduce the duration of arctic air so it's quicker hitting and leaves the region quicker."

That should mean cold snaps maxxing out at few days, instead of a week or so, Hoving said.

Another Michigan winter

Walking around inside the Lansing Mall on Tuesday, Lansing resident Therman Wills said the state comes with snow.

He just tries to enjoy it and handle it as best as he can.

"We're used to it," Wills said.

Contact Mike Ellis at mellis@lsj.com or 517-267-0415

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: El Niño conditions could mean warmer, less snowy winter for Lansing