When AccuWeather released its long-range 2018-19 winter forecast to private clients on Sept. 19 and to the public on Oct. 3, the New England Patriots were about to start a winning streak that would turn their sluggish 1-2 start into an NFL-best 11th Super Bowl appearance. The timing is coincidental but the Patriots’ success – and AccuWeather’s achievements with its long-range forecasts – is not.

The Patriots have real skill and it is not by chance they are in the Super Bowl so often. Sometimes the Patriots lose, and occasionally lose badly. However, no matter who you root for – and they are not my favorite team – you do have to respect the skill they demonstrate, their overall superiority, and emulate that.

For the third straight year, AccuWeather’s long-range winter seasonal forecast was also clearly superior and accurately predicted how this winter would unfold in multiple regions of the country. The leader of our terrific long-range forecasting team is AccuWeather expert long-range forecaster Paul Pastelok.

Our team uses all of our extensive historical database, present data, artificial intelligence, analogs, a critical mix of ocean and meteorological data and the world’s largest collection of forecasting models to deliver the most reliable long-range forecasts.

For example, our winter forecast released in early October said, “Once again, El Nino will influence the winter weather across the Northeast, mid-Atlantic and Great Lakes. The season will start out mild for much of the region before colder weather digs in its heels in January and February.”

“The timing of the events is happening just as we predicted back in mid-September,“ said Marshall Moss, AccuWeather vice president, Forecasting and Graphic Operations. “For the last three winters, we’ve been pretty much right on.”

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Similarly, we said, “A very active winter is predicted for the Southeast, Tennessee Valley and Gulf Coast this season. January and February will be particularly conducive to snow and ice threats, with multiple storms forecast for the region.”

Sure enough, an early December snow event brought over a foot of snow in the North Carolina mountains. “It has been an active storm track already with more to come,” said Pastelok. “There have been rounds of severe weather in January from the lower Mississippi Valley on east.”

Among other spot-on forecasts, we said, “The interior Southwest is likely to end up drier, with more precipitation reaching Central California, particularly midseason.” The key here is pinpointing midseason; recently, we saw at least three big systems with flooding rain in California and snow measured in feet across the Sierra.

We are extremely proud of our long-range forecasting team and our long-range forecasting accuracy and demonstrated unique skills, which help businesses and people plan better thereby save them time and money. Their achievement is not by chance.

Being recognized as the most accurate in long-range forecasting is vital to helping people with their personal and business decision-making. We refused for decades to make long-range forecasts because until the 1990s, there was little or no demonstrated skill possible. In fact, in the 1960s and ‘70s, I called a forecast beyond a week witchcraft.

But now, as science and ocean-atmospheric interactions are better understood and we have made significant progress with a unique analog, our long-range forecasting effort can be based on science and a skill, thanks also to the emergence of so many more forecasting tools, weather models that run for a longer duration, a greater understanding of El Nino effects and ocean effects, our careful use of analogs, pattern recognitions and teleconnections – and our team of top-notch meteorologists.

It was not until we were confident in the tools and our abilities that we began producing such long-range forecasts.

Much like the Patriots reaching the Super Bowl, we realize that we don’t always have the most accurate long-range forecasts, yet over a period of time, we know we will have the best won-loss record.

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