What does winter 2009-10 hold?

STORMTRACKER WEATHER LAB - You don't need your snow shovels quite yet, but you might want to start unpacking the winter clothes and have those shovels handy, especially if this winter is anything like winter 2008-09.

The winter of 2008-09 was cold. Temperatures early in the winter were below normal. January featured much below normal temperatures. Most areas saw negative double-digit low temperatures in the middle of January.

It was the coldest January since 1994. Temperatures in February and March were above normal, but only slightly.

With the cold temperatures during the first half of the winter, came the snow. The snow reached a peak in January with a widespread snowstorm early in the month, and again late in the month.

"Last year was mainly January," said Gary Garnet of the National Weather Service's Cleveland office. "That's when our winter occurred. It was the second snowiest winter on record. Toledo got 30.7 inches of snow and the record is 30.8 inches."

The jet stream was to blame for our super snowy January last year.

"Last January the jet stream set up where the same storms continued to blow over the same area," Garnet said.

Obviously when this happens you can get a ton of snow in a short period of time.

The question now is will 2009-10 be a repeat of last year, or something else entirely?

This year we have El Nino that will influence our forecast. The Farmers Almanac staff have issued their winter forecast and it completely differs from the National Weather Service.

Long range predictions for winter are extremely hard to do, so this week the Stormtracker Weather Team is going to take a look at all of the factors that will influence the 2009-10 winter season.