North Idaho/Northwest Montana 2022-2023 Winter Outlook

It’s mid October as of this writing and the leaves, while off to a very slow start on their fall color journey, are finally beginning to show their vibrancy. The late start to the fall color show, which historically would be just past its peak by this time, is now beginning to come into its fullness about 2 weeks behind schedule. This continues to follow the trend thus far for much of the 2022 season. A late start to winter in December of 2021 that only lasted about 2 weeks before a lengthy dry and mild spell until the middle of March followed by cold temperatures and an abundance of rain and snow into the end of April which then transitioned to a much more typical wet May and June period. Rains continued off and on into the first 2 weeks of July and then summer arrived in brutal force. The period from July 2022 through mid October 2022 as of this writing has been one of the driest and warmest, if not the driest and warmest in recorded history. We know however from tree rings and history that our region has seen patterns like this in the past and even warmer and drier periods as well. With autumn now finally in full swing, many are wondering what the upcoming winter will look like. If you read on I will provide my best guess on the upcoming winter for the specific region of North Idaho and Northwest Montana’s Bonner, Boundary, Lincoln and Sanders Counties.

As mentioned above the summer season was one of the driest and warmest in recorded history with weather records dating back to 1895 in Libby, MT which is one of the longest periods of record in our region with Priest River, ID coming in a close second with records back to 1898. Typically when doing winter outlooks I look back at several factors including but not limited to, past weather patterns, precipitation types and amounts, temperatures current and past, ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation or El Nino for short) conditions current and past, the PNA (Pacific North American) pattern current and past as well as several other factors that go into guessing the upcoming season. The challenge for this upcoming winter season is simply the weather records that are available that go back to 1895 simply do not have any data that even resembles the past 4 months of weather that we have experienced in the Northern Rockies. Having said that, here goes the best guess for our region.

What will the 2022-2023 winter for the Northern Rockies look like? Will it look like this?

Photo courtesy of the City of Sandpoint, ID.

Or perhaps more like this?

In the first picture your snowblower and plow would get a lot more use than the shovel whereas in the second picture even your shovel might get hardly any use at all. For the record the official winter outlook from the National Weather Service for our region shows the following. Take a look at the pictures below. The first shows temperature probabilities and the second precipitation probabilities.

For the period of December through February this picture shows temperatures leaning below average for our region (40% to 50%) probability. Photo courtesy of NOAA.

For the period of December through February this picture shows precipitation chances of leaning above average ( 40% to 50%) probability for our region. Photo courtesy of NOAA.

It is important to point out that the above two graphics DO NOT say that we are going to have a colder and snowier winter or that we are going to have a huge winter with tons of snow. What it does say is that the odds favor and are leaning towards colder than average temperatures with odds favoring and leaning towards above average precipitation for the period of December through February for North Idaho and Northwest Montana. I will point out that ACCU WEATHER’s official winter 2022-2023 outlook is calling for colder, snowier conditions throughout the Northern Rockies. The main area I see most of the general public for our region running into problems with this is simply these two forecasts are covering a very broad area and are generally broad brushed. As many of us locals know our region is extremely complex with valleys and mountains with snow levels ultimately determining how much snow actually falls where the majority of the people live. So while it possible that the mountains will see a heavy winter with a lot of snow, it is also entirely possible that the valleys, where people reside, could see very little snow if the snow levels end up hovering around 3000 feet or higher throughout the winter. Here is my official winter outlook specifically for our region of Bonner, Boundary, Lincoln and Sanders Counties.

From the research that I have looked at for the past 2 months or so, this winter for our region specifically is looking a bit more complex than the above pictures may indicate. Only 3 previous winters in recorded history have atmospheric and oceanic data even remotely close to what we have this season up to this point in time. Those winters were the Winter of 1956-1957, 1975-1976 and 2000-2001. I am expecting temperatures to be on a bit of a roller coaster with equal chances for mild temperatures, frigid temperatures and seasonal temperatures. If anything I would say that there is a bit of a bias for January and perhaps February to have the potential of some rather cold, possibly bitterly cold temperatures while November, December and mid February to March to possibly have periods of very mild temperatures. Overall confidence in temperatures for this upcoming winter is much lower than I would like to be on record for. As a whole I would cautiously lean towards temperatures running near to a little below average for the entire winter. In the previously mentioned 2 winters above only the winter of 1956 to 1957 was consistently cold across the entire region with the winter of 1975-1976 and 2000-2001 having fairly wide swings in temperatures from mild to bitterly cold. Now for precipitation. I have much higher confidence that although temperatures appear to be less consistently colder as a whole, snowfall does in fact look to be above to possibly well above average for certain in the mountains and…….also down in the valleys so the potential is there for a significant amount of winter snowfall “down here” where most of us reside. Two of the previously mentioned three winters above had well above average snowfalls in the valleys with records and in some cases about double the average seasonal snowfall. Keep in mind that most of our valleys where people actually reside year round average between 55 and 90 inches of snowfall for a season while mountain locations typically average between 150 to 300 inches a season but unless you live year round up at Schweitzer Village, we do not typically see those types of snowfalls here in the valleys. I will say that there is a small chance that the upcoming winter season could see some very impressive snowfalls even for valley locations, something that our region has really not seen much of since the winter of 2016-2017 although Sandpoint, ID did have one decent snowfall in the winter of 2021-2022 that brought close to 2 feet over a 2 day period in town back in January but it quickly changed to rain and became slush.

In summary for North Idaho and Northwest Montana I will go on the record and say that for the upcoming winter of 2022-2023 we could see some roller coaster temperatures with some very mild days, some frigid days and some seasonal days with precipitation more likely to be above average including more snow, and possibly even the dreaded freezing rain events. The last significant widespread freezing rain event the region has seen was in January of 1997 and that was terrible. Let’s hope we do not have a repeat of that one. Ultimately time will tell what type of winter we will see but as us locals in the Northern Rockies know its always best to be prepared for just about anything. As for myself I personally am hoping for a seasonal winter as far as temperatures go but with A LOT of snowfall settling down to the valley floors. Simply be prepared for those snowfalls. If you do not have a metal snow shedding roof make sure you have a plan in place to either shovel the roof or have someone do that for you. We do not want any roofs collapsing so the best advice would be if you begin to see snow starting to get deep on your roof put a plan into action and get that snow cleared. Let’s all enjoy the winter and help our friends and neighbors out so that many hands make light work. The bottom line is how heavy our winter season ends up being will largely be determined by what elevation snow levels end up settling at during our winter storms. If they end up lower then we will almost certainly have a heavy winter in the valleys and towns. If they end up higher then valleys and towns may not see much snowfall at all. Ski resorts will likely see a great year regardless although the lower snow levels would certainly favor better conditions up on the slopes. Ultimately the final say as to whether or not we have a heavy winter will fall on two important factors, the East Pacific ridge and the Hudson Bay low. Where these two atmospheric features ultimately set up will truly determine the type of winter we have. If the East Pacific ridge is further east closer to the West Coast and the Hudson Bay low stays locked in place over Hudson Bay in Canada then it is likely we will have a dry winter. If the East Pacific ridge sets up further west in the Central Pacific and the Hudson Bay low gets anchored over Alberta or Saskatchwan then it becomes increasingly likely we will have a snowy, possibly extremely heavy winter. The role of the MJO (Madden Julian Oscillation) also must be factored in but this activity is extremely difficult to predict this far in advance. Finally this is not the OFFICIAL winter forecast for our region, that responsibility rests solely with the National Weather Service and NOAA. As an amateur forecaster this outlook is merely supplied as a “best guess” and to help narrow down from past experience what I think our region will see.