As we enter into the winter season and welcome back the chills and rain, the annual question is on everyone’s mind: will it snow and, if so, when? Portland weather always seems to be unpredictable. Some years we get a big snow storm, which comes with a full week off school. Other years, there’s just a random day in February with some morning ice and a two-hour delay. So what’s in store this year? Meteorologists are conflicted.

This past Oct. 27, local and regional meteorologists got together for the 27th annual Winter Weather Forecast Conference at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) in Portland to compare weather predictions for this upcoming winter season. One of the key points the presenting meteorologists stated was that this winter won’t see a La Niña or El Niño weather pattern, but rather a neutral one.

An El Niño weather pattern brings about warmer temperatures because it causes a warming of the Pacific Ocean. On the other hand, La Niña brings about cooling of the Pacific and colder, rainier temperatures for the Pacific Northwest. Neutral years are considered a wildcard, and it’s during these times when anything can happen, including big storms.

“These are the years we can get big events, could be big lowland snow events, could be a damaging windstorm, could be a flood event,” Tyree Wilde, a meteorologist with Portland’s National Weather Service commented.. “Any of these can occur and they have occurred in neutral years.”

Wilde remarked that 60 percent of Portland’s snowiest winters have happened during neutral years. In the last decade, the highest snowfall Portland saw was in 2017, with 6.5 inches. The lowest, just two years earlier in 2015, was only 0.1 inches.

Regardless of neutral weather patterns increasing the chance for snow, it’s important to note that historically some neutral years have brought minimal or no snow at all to the Portland-metro area. So, like the makeup of an anticipated neutral weather pattern, the upcoming winter season is sure to be a “wildcard,” where anything’s possible: weeks off school