I wonder why so many snow lovers live in the South where it rarely happens? It's not like we don't know where we should move if we love it so. Personally I enjoy it enough that I would move if I could, and might be that rare American who retires someplace snowier instead of sunnier. But then I've always been weird about weather LOL.

So how long has it been since Atlanta last had a "big snow"? Of course it depends on your definition of big snow, mine or Atlanta's. Most people would say its been years, many years, a decade or more. But it was just last year!  And before that there were good snows earlier in this decade and in the 1990s. But one of those big snows was on a weekend and quickly turned to rain and melted away. We only get 2 inches of snow on average, that is the "climate norm" which is a set 30-year mean (presently 1971-2001)

Of course, if it snows on the weekend and school and work are not canceled, in Atlanta that equals it never happened LOL.  Last year our significant snow occurred on a Sunday, March 1st.  4.2 inches officially at the airport, yet many areas got little or nothing so we were accused by some of forecasting too much. Then again, a very narrow band from Columbus/La Grange NE to Athens got thundersnow and 5-7 inches and Athens 9 so we were accused by some of not forecasting enough!  :D so you can see how perspective (my backyard is the universe and all of Metro Atlanta LOL) and memory and IMPACT can affect perceptions of reality.

My preliminary winter forecast was issued way back in September. The final version will be issued NO LATER than the first week of December. Sorry about all the LOLs, I know that can get get annoying. LOL Oops.

As I look at some of the research analogues for the winter outlook it dawned on me that the climate normals alone make it harder to zero in on snow or ice where many years see none.
Probably impossible to correctly estimate for places say along or South of I-10 for example but much easier to pick up on tendencies in the atmospheric signals in the Rockies and upper Midwest or New England states where snow is common yet follows some patterns.

When your locations average mean normal seasonal snowfall is zero OR very small the standard deviation can be quite high. In other words, since you usually get little or no snow...NOT getting any snow is NOT news. Yet just a little WILL make news and "a lot" will be headline news. Also it only takes ONE "half-way" decent storm (non major by meteorological standards) to dump the historic average or more.

Whereas if you live in a place where snow is commonplace and not news, it will take one HUGE storm to make headlines or more often, MANY storms to get you above the normal seasonal snowfall average. And it will take either many routine storms OR a couple biggies to be significantly above a "typical" winter.  But in places like Atlanta you can have a snow total well above "typical" much easier-- a single decent storm (even if meteorologically unremarkable) or a handful of puny ones.  This makes predicting what a future winter will bring much harder where snow is rare. We've seen this in the past where the temp forecast was great and the total precipitation forecast was right, but the snowfall forecast way off. And of course the data available is at Hartsfield, and as we saw last year a single point will not always be representative of a sprawling metro area like Atlanta. But I'll give it the old college try anyway. The strength of the El Nino, and the sign of the NAO and PDO are making this a difficult call to make.