National weather forecasters think about sixty percent of Missouri could have a warmer than usual winter this year.

COULD have.

The deputy director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center, Mike Halpert, says winter might be more than one-third warmer than usual north of Interstate 44. “Think about if you were…rolling dice. The dice are loaded a little bit so that they come up more often than not on the warm side…It’s not a guarantee by any means…but if you roll them enough times we would expect you to come up on the warm side,” he says.

The area below I-44 is in the “equal chances” category, sandwiched between areas where winter is expected to be warmer than usual and where it’s expected to be cooler than usual. Halpert says the chances are equal that part of the state will see a winter that is warmer, or colder, or about the same…as an average winter.

A small part of southeast Missouri could see a winter as much as one-third drier than usual. The rest of the state is in the “equal chances” category.

The outlook is for the next 90 days.

precipitation outlook:

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/images/winteroutlook_precip.jpg

Temperature outlook

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/images/winteroutlook_temp.jpg

  Bob Priddy interviews Mike Halpert