Snow Business: Field Predicting A 'Snowy' Winter

As summer winds down in Connecticut, an iconic meteorologist was predicting a snowy winter for the upcoming snow sports season.

Brad Field might be retired from NBC, but he is still the chief meteorologist for New England Skywatch Weather, a service he founded, and is active on his Brad Field Weather Facebook page. Field is a skier and appreciates what winter brings.

With that mentioned, Field predicted 65 inches of snow for last season at Bradley International Airport, and the area received 62.5 inches. He predicted 85 inches in the western hills, and the area received exactly that.

So what could happen this season?

A lot, Field said.

"We can have an early start to the season, perhaps decent skiing by Thanksgiving and some significant trails open by early December," Field said.

This season's pattern, Field said, will be ENSO neutral, or more formally El Nino Southern Oscillation. That means normal temperatures but weather patterns that start in the Pacific that are prone to collisions with cold air over the plains, he said.

Field and his longtime colleague, Art Horn, researched the patterns back in the 1990s.

"What happens is that New England gets very snowy with ENSO," Field said.

How snowy?

"Maybe 25 to 30 percent more," Field answered.

He said there will likely be more cloud cover than normal, which would thwart the radiational cooling and bitter cold that comes with clear skies at night. But it means more snow, Field said.

Field said ENSO features two predominant tracks — Great Lakes cutters that dump snow then reform south of New England and "pure east coast snowstorms."

It could translate into something comparable to the 120 inches that came with the 1995-96 season.

"It is likely trending toward that, and I think skiers are looking at a good winter," Field said.

Field chuckled with one more bit of information — The Old Farmers' Almanac is predicting a cold and snowy winter for Connecticut and the rest of the Northeast.
In its recently released 2017-2018 winter forecast, the 200-year-old weather resource predicted winter conditions to be "a bit more normal" as far as temperatures are concerned in the eastern part of the country.

"Now the Almanac is a great source for weather tidbits, but the predictions are fun," Field said. "But for this winter, I actually agree with the forecast."

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