Queston “Is winter almost over?” doesn't have an answer says SIU professor of meteorology

Justin Schoof, Ph.D, is chairman of the Geography and Environmental Resources Department at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.

His specialty is meteorology and climatology. He teaches a 300 level course in meteorology as well as Climatology 431 and Applied Geographic Statistics 412.

So he SHOULD know if next week's promised 50 degree temperatures signal the beginning of the end to winter. Right?

"The question you have does not have an answer," says Dr. Schoof. And, here's why. March 20 is the official 2014 start of spring, "but the spring equinox is astrological, not metrological," says Dr. Schoof.

The March equinox occurs the moment the sun crosses the celestial equator - the imaginary line in the sky above the Earth's equator - from south to north. This happens either on March 19, 20 or 21 every year.

But, it has nothing to do with forecasting how long winter will last. He said that obviously "we should start to see weather systems that move through the Midwest that are less cold than the systems before."

But, unfortunately, the Midwest has never benefited from long range forecasting. "There are places where you can forecast out even farther than 30 days," he said. Those forecasts mostly have to do with rain and drought based on things like El Nino patterns. The extremes of this climate pattern's oscillations cause extreme weather (such as floods and droughts) in many regions of the world. Those patterns are more predictable on the pacific west coast. Many systems--except for developing severe storms--are harder to forecast in the Midwest.

"I don't have confidence in ANY forecast past three days," said Dr. Schoof. "They (forecasters) can do a 10-day forecast based on the jet stream, but they have a lot of low skill."

Dr. Schoof said he caught the weather patterns "just right" in his recent trip to Atlanta for the American Meteorological Society annual convention. "I left in the bad storm here two weeks ago and was in Atlanta between storms."