O I L P RICE O U T LO OK
rologist and head of the long-range department, Paul Pastelok, noted that there are some strong indicators about what might be expected during the coming winter. "Our official winter forecast doesn't come out for another
couple of weeks, but we already have some general ideas of what to expect going into the winter season," said Pastelok. "We usu- ally don't try to plot things this far out, but this year is very similar to some years in the past with the type of tropical summer season that we've had and the potential to go back into a weak or moder- ate La Niña. So we are comfortable making a few assumptions." Pastelok stated that the Northeast should have a milder winter
compared to last year from the standpoint of precipitation, which does have an impact on temperatures. As far as the cold goes, the more extreme temperatures are going to be shifted a bit farther to the west mainly from the Appalachians back into the Midwest and West. "The Northeast should have a cold beginning of the season from the Thanksgiving time period into December or early January, but then there may be a turnaround where it's not as cold. We could see above normal (but still, of course, requiring heating) temperatures toward late January or February. We are working on that to see if the turn- around is going to be right, but we've seen several years that relate to what we've seen this year where that has happened. You're still going to be heating, but maybe not at the same rate that we saw last year."
Pastelok noted that in the Midwest and Plains states things
could potentially be considerably cooler by 8 to 9 degrees on average over extended periods of time. The warmer Great Lakes weather will mitigate the impact of cold air moving eastwards, but as those temperatures equalized during the year all bets will be off. "Those in the Southeast may have milder weather than last year and some of that mild weather may get pushed North on occasion," he said. The winter should also be milder in the Northwest compared
to last year, but then last year was fairly exceptional. Pastelok sees a milder start to the winter season in the more coastal areas, at least through December, perhaps with more precipitation. But, that should change. "As you get into February or March all of the cold that was aimed for the first part of the winter season on the Northern Plains could shift farther west with the brunt of it going into the areas of no man's land like Montana and Wyoming and up towards the Cascades. Areas like Spokane down to Boise could get into some cold air as you get into the second half of the heating season. For coastal Seattle and Portland – you may have your chill spots once in a while, but I don't see anything extreme at this point." In the Canadian Northwest, Pastelok noted the farther north
you go, it's probably going to be dryer and cold so you might see the above average use of heating in the mid-to-late season. l FON
www.fueloilnews.com | FUEL OIL NEWS | OCTOBER 2011 19
