After the coldest start to December in 20 years, the month will end milder
SOUTH BEND, Ind -- If you watched the ABC57 Winter Knockout: Outlook 2026, the narrative was the cold would have a hard time landing a punch, early in the fight, that didn't happen! If anything, winter 'cheated' starting the fight before the bell rang with a blow of lake effect snow, leading to the coldest start to December in 20 years.
That being said, out winter forecast is still on track, winter is packing more of a punch, but it now looks like the cold will be back on its heels to end December.
A White Christmas is now unlikely. after the third snowiest November, December has at least had SOME snowfall. When it's all said-and-done the month may end with near / below normal temperatures, and below normal snowfall.
We first started working on our outlook in October -- for production purposes -- over a month out, the only clear signal was mild weather for most of November. It wasn't until close to the airdate, in mid-November, that cold weather was likely to arrives in early December. Even then forecasting the coldest start to December in 20 years would have been a leap.
Looking ahead at early January, there's a signal the mild weather will retreat, and normal weather for January is cold, and that would potentially get us back on track for round 2 of our fight.
