What to expect for the rest of Chicago's winter

Chicago - The countdown to spring is just five days, meteorologically speaking. 

Meteorological winter ends on Tuesday, the last day of February. It looks like winter will end with a whimper. There are a few chances for more February snow, but no significant accumulation is expected.

I've posted about our wimpy winter before. Wednesday's ice storm notwithstanding, the winter of 2022-2023 is projected to be one of the easiest winters we have ever endured. The average temperature so far is around 31.5 degrees. If winter ended today, it would rank among the top 15 warmest on record. 

So far we have seen 15.1 inches of snowfall for the season which is almost 13 inches below average. If we don't get any additional snowfall this month, this winter would rank among the top 20 least snowy winters on record.

 The "Accumulated Winter Season Severity Index" or AWSSI (or "misery index") calculated by the Midwest Regional Climate Center measures our winter misery and assigns it a category. The categories in order from least miserable to most include mild, moderate, average, severe and extreme. We are now near the middle of the "mild" category, where we have been for a good portion of this winter.

Based on similar winters in our past, we are projected (the blue line) to end right in the middle of the mild category. Our current index stands at 272. The lowest score for Chicago since this index has been measured is 208 and the highest is 1249.

GFS snowfall accumulation forecast through Tuesday

There is a chance for some light snow this evening and again Monday night. The GFS model isn't squeezing out much additional snow for this winter. It has most of us seeing an additional tenth of an inch of snow from today through Tuesday.

Our Fox model suggests today will be the coldest day of the five final days of February with a high in the upper 20s. We warm up through the weekend with highs by Monday well into the 50s, or about 15 degrees above average. It appears our mild end to winter may spill over into spring. High temperatures should be around or above average from Wednesday to the following Monday when we could hit a high of 60!

The Climate Prediction Center's long-range temperature outlook echos this forecast with a relatively mild pattern suggested through the first several days of meteorological spring.

The 6-10 day temperature outlook keeps the mild air coming from Wednesday next week through the following Sunday. It has Chicago "leaning above" average overall during this period.

The 8-14 day temperature outlook keeps the relatively mild pattern coming but the probabilities of being above average overall do slip just a bit. We are "leaning above average" from next Friday through the following Thursday, just beyond the first week of March. For more on the forecast for this spring you can check out this post.

There have been some discussions in the meteorological community about that suggest a "sudden stratospheric warming" could help herald another round of Arctic air here in early March. Notice how the blob of blue on the longer range outlooks is getting bigger and stretching further east. That could signal a change in our pattern coming sometime in March. Stay tuned!