Well, we wrapped up the month of November with a grand total of a trace of snow and 1.86” of rain for the month. Our average or normal snowfall for the month of November is 2.4” in Milwaukee. Along with the lack of snowfall, November 2020 ended up becoming the 4th warmest on record based on statistic from the National Weather Service Milwaukee.
The chart below shows that our average high temperature for November was 46.6°. This can be attributed to a stretch of 70°+ days that we had from Nov. 3rd-10th.
November 2001 still ranks #1 as the warmest November on record for Milwaukee with an average temperature of 47.4°. When you go back and look at the data for 2001, you will notice that there was not a single day where the temperature reached 70° but there were 8 days where highs were 60° or more. There were also more than 8 days where highs were in the mid to upper 50s making the entire month mild unlike November 2020 where we had several temperature extremes.
So, many people have been asking—where’s the snow. The answer is…so far it just keeps missing us. Although we’ve had some light snow and flurries over the past 2 months and some accumulating snow up north that’s now gone, we just haven’t had an event that’s brought out the need for snow blowers or plows. On November 30th and December 1st our neighbors to the east in Detroit and Cleveland saw from 3” to as much a foot of snow in the Cleveland metro area. With this storm system, southeast Wisconsin didn’t have chance a getting a significant snowfall because of the path of the low pressure system was from the southeast to the northeast. We did have some indirect impacts from this same system, in the form of some light, lake effect snow due to the strong northeasterly winds.
But, for everyone who’s wanting a good ole SE Wisconsin snow— I do have some good news. The outlook for SE Wisconsin is trending towards the cold air sticking around and some wetter days going into the second week of December. Of course, I can’t make any promises but these conditions would a least give us the setup for a significant snow event. So be on the lookout for a “panhandle hook” or an area of low pressure that moves from the 4 Corners region, across the Texas/Oklahoma panhandle (hence the phrase “panhandle hook”), and then lifts or “hooks” NE into the upper Midwest. If a storm like this were to develop, we could see some heavy snow in SE Wisconsin. Stay tuned!