Given the warm temperatures we felt on Thursday, memories of the warm summer we had may have rushed back.

What You Need To Know

  • Summer 2020 was one of the warmest on record in Syracuse

  • In an earlier blog, we discovered that warm summers do not necessarily lead to snowier winters

  • Summer temperatures do not accurately predict a trend for winter temperatures

We all know days above even the 50-degree mark are numbered by this time of year, though, so you may be asking yourself just how cold this upcoming winter may be.

Of course, there are many factors that play a role in how our seasons play out in terms of both temperature and precipitation. These factors are visible on a global, regional, and local scale and vary greatly day-to-day.

Recently, I wrote about the potential relationship of a warm summer and the following winter snowfall being above-average, of which there is no statistical significance​ as some have wondered.

But how about temperatures? Because this summer was indeed so warm, does that indicate anything about what kind of winter we can expect based on records of the past?

Upon examining the winter temperatures (December, January, and February) versus the previous summer's temperatures (June, July, and August) here in Syracuse, there is no significant correlation between the two sets of data.

In other words, the summer temperatures we see cannot really be soundly used as predictors for how cold (or warm) the upcoming winter will be.

Note the trend line in orange on the graph below. It is more flat than it is steep, indicating that it is difficult to make a statement about a well-defined relationship between summer and winter temperatures.

 

 

Another way of looking at this is the coefficient of determination, or r-squared value. In this case on a scale of 0 (no correlation) to 1 (strong correlation) we have a very weak relationship (r-squared = 0.0403) between the temperatures we see during any given summer and the following winter.

Now that we know statistically speaking that we cannot draw conclusions about the upcoming winter based solely on the summer we just saw, it’s time to prepare the winter coats and snowblowers and see how this winter stacks up in terms of snow and cold to past seasons.