I’ve been receiving numerous questions about our upcoming winter season as many are wondering how much snow is going to fall across our area. Last winter, the season of 2014-15, Cliff’s station only managed to pick up 36.5 inches of the white stuff. The normal is slightly less than 70 inches.

Most of us have probably heard about the big El Nino event in the south-central Pacific Ocean. El Nino is the abnormal warming of ocean waters that often changes global weather patterns. The Southern Hemisphere also sees the effects of El Nino as Australia usually turns drier than normal.

The latest sea-surface temperature data shows that we have a strong El Nino event with warmer than normal ocean waters from the Equatorial regions northward into the Gulf of Alaska. Sea-surface temperatures continue to be over 5 degrees above normal in areas near the South American coastline and along the Equator.

According to NOAA, the recent monthly sea-surface temperature anomalies along the Equator are slightly higher than the big 1996-97 event for the warmest in the modern era. During that winter season, flooding rains were reported in California and it was milder than normal across much of the U.S. In late December of 1996, the Northwest was hit hard with snow and freezing rain that left more than 300,000 homes and businesses without power.

According to scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, it’s now believed that El Nino has a 95 percent chance of lasting through the upcoming winter season before weakening next spring. They believe this is very good news for California as the chances for rain increase and easing the big drought in the Golden State. We’re already starting to see this pattern as southern California received more flooding rainfall last week as 4-6 inches fell in Los Angeles and Kern counties. More storms are expected in southern California in the coming weeks. Even the northern and central portions of the Golden State will likely see some rain in early to mid November.

On the flip side, this new El Nino event is also hurting U.S. rice farmers. It has caused planting delays in the spring across the Mississippi Delta and Texas, the country’s main rice-producing regions. During the growing season, too many cloudy days and warm nights created the worst conditions for rice production. Arkansas and Texas are likely to be about 15 to 20 percent below average this year.

The warmer waters in the Gulf of Alaska may help hold the big western ridge of high pressure in place into early 2016 at least across the northern portions of the U.S. and southern Canada. Although the high pressure system has brought us some nice weather in recent weeks, it’s also responsible for the driest period from June 2 through mid October in recorded history.

But, the ridge looks like it will ‘flatten’ out enough to allow some moisture into the region over the weeks.

Historically, strong El Ninos lead to wetter conditions in the southern U.S. from California to the Carolinas and the East Coast. Drier weather often occurs in the Ohio Valley, Great Lakes, the northern Rockies and the Northwest. Temperatures are cooler in the Desert Southwest, the southern Great Plains and the Gulf Coast. Readings are warmer across the northern U.S.

For our area, Cliff and I are predicting snowfall totals similar to the 2014-15 winter season, around 35 to 40 inches in Coeur d’Alene. There will likely be periods of heavy, wet snow, but the major of the moisture that falls should be in the form of rain. It’s also possible that we could see more ‘icy weather,’ including an ice storm, thanks to the strong El Nino event. I’ll have a detailed snowfall forecast next week.

According to the Australia Bureau of Meteorology, there hasn’t been as much warm water in the tropical Pacific Ocean since the big El Nino event in 1997-98. With the warmer than normal sea-surface temperatures covering a large portion of the eastern Pacific Ocean and other parts of the world, it’s likely that 2015 will be the warmest on Earth in terms of land and ocean measurements.

Randy Mann can be reached at longrangeweather.com