It’s hard not to notice the variations of weather we see in North Dakota from year to year.

For example, parts of the state were buried in snow by this time in 2017, thanks to snow storm after snow storm.

This year, there’s snow on the ground, but not nearly as much.

As of Thursday, Minot has had about 13 inches of total snow fall. That compares to the 42 inches that fell before January 3, 2017.

So, why were things so different two years ago compared to now?  There’s many contributing factors.

“This year, we’re not technically in an El Nino, we have not been categorized as that,” said meteorologist Amber Wheeler. “We just have the high chance of going into one.”

So El Nino and La Nina do have something to do with it .. but it’s also thanks to the jet stream being further north. That’s what brought most of the moisture we’ve seen this winter in the form of rain, instead of snow.

Back in the winter of 2016-2017, Amber said “That winter was a La Nina winter, which typically, for North Dakota means colder air outbreaks are a little more common and higher than normal precipitation is favored. And that’s what we saw that winter.”

That explains the nearly 50 inches of snow in Minot and 60 inches in Bismarck that fell in just three months time.

So what explains what we’re seeing right now?

“We’ve just had dry pattern after dry pattern after dry pattern that’s been sort of set up behind each other,” Amber explained. I cannot attribute that to El Nino but we’ve had an El Nino-like pattern with the jet stream that’s been north of us quite a bit, which has kept us warm.”

That warmth affects the outlook for the start of 2019. Amber says the month of January is projected to bring an average amount of snowfall, which is around 8 to 9 inches .. that’s less than half of what the capital city saw in January two years ago.

However, the weather can still manage to surprise.

“That doesn’t mean we’re not going to get a snow storm that completely wallops us and gives us two feet,” Amber said. “It just means that right now, the confidence is that it’s going to be mostly normal and if not drier than normal in the southwest.”

Another thing that sets a perspective to compare this winter to that of two years ago. This year, the city of Minot has put in about 35 hours of cleaning up and taking care of the roads. 

By this time in January 2017, the city had put in about 800 hours. That’s right, 8-0-0.