Oregon Chapter
American Meteorological Society

The Oregon Chapter of the American Meteorological Society hosted the 20th annual Winter Weather Forecast Conference on Saturday, November 17th 2012 at 10 AM. Meteorologists from across the Pacific Northwest once again descended on OMSI in Portland to give their prognostications for the upcoming winter in front of more than 300 attendees. The consensus amongst the majority of forecasters was that El Nino and La Nina will not be large factors this winter. That leaves the door wide open for a wide array of weather across the Pacific Northwest over the next few months. It was also noted that Portland has recorded plenty of cold and snowy weather in years where neither El Nino or La Nina were present.

Below is a complete wrap up of the days events, including a video of the entire meeting. You can also download each forecasters presentation.

The conference opened with a welcome by Steve Pierce, Oregon Chapter President that transitioned into a science year in review by Jim Todd, OMSI Planetarium Manager.

Steve Pierce, President of the Oregon Chapter of the AMS(left) Steve Pierce's opening presentation

Jim Todd, OMSI Planetarium Manager(right) presentation

Mark Nelsen, KPTV-12 Chief Meteorologist, than gave a review of last year’s winter weather - Review of 2010 - 2011 Weather presentation

Clinton Rockey, Meteorologist, from the National Weather Service in Portland, Oregon gave NOAA's seasonal winter outlooks as well as Portland snow accumulation data. Rockey has spent many hours updating and correcting past snowfall records. Good Job Clinton Rockey!! Clinton Rockey's presentation

Winter Forecasts

Kyle Dittmer, from the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, gave his forecast for the winter the included sunspot cycles as part of his holistic approach. He predictics four snowfall events with one moderate events (2-5 inch) and three minor event (1 inch). Dittmer said that is was likely to occur between January and March. Kyle Dittmer's presentation & Prediction summary

George Taylor, Climatologist with Applied Climate Services, said to expect December relativley dray and mild but with valley fog. January similar to December; Februaru to be active with considerable rain and a 50/50 chance of low elevation snowfall; March will be wet, windy and wild.

George also sang us a nice brand new La Nina song; sung to the tune of “My Girl”.  As in “everybody talkin’ ’bout La Nina…”  George Taylor's presentation

Jim Little an Oregon Department of Forestry Meteorologist presented his Seasonal Forecasts using Objectively Chosen Analog Years. See Jim Little's presentation for all the details

Mr. Little, presented Pete Parsons' presentation, who could not make the conference.

Forecasters answered questions from the audience.

Microsoft Powerpoint (.pps file extension) viewer download (click here)