Taking stock of every winter outlook for Washington, D.C.

Most seem confident that we’ll see more snow than last winter, but that’s a very low bar. Last winter’s snowfall totaled just 0.6 inches in Washington, the third-lowest amount on record.

Last winter, the majority of forecasters wrongly predicted above-average snowfall, while a few outliers, including the Capital Weather Gang, called for somewhat below-average amounts. This year, a couple of forecasters are again going against the grain, predicting a rather snowy winter. So maybe, to the delight of snow-lovers, the contrarian viewpoint will prevail.

Below, we summarize the winter outlooks from more than a dozen meteorologists and forecasting groups, along with the snow predictions from the Capital Weather Gang and its readers.

Commercial forecasts

We interviewed via email seven forecasters who own forecasting businesses or represent larger companies about their winter outlooks for Washington. All but two predicted just 7 to 10 inches of snow for the winter at Reagan National Airport, Washington’s official observing location, well off the 1981-to-2010 average of 15.4 inches.

The two outliers have seen signs that snow could overperform expectations and call for more than 20 inches.

Here’s a summary of their outlooks:

Media forecasts

Winter outlooks from the area’s broadcast meteorologists were in remarkably good agreement, all predicting below-average snowfall and above-average temperatures. Here’s a summary of their outlooks:

Capital Weather Gang forecasts

Capital Weather Gang’s official winter outlook, released Nov. 18, called for somewhat above-average temperatures and 10 to 14 inches of snow in the immediate area, which is slightly below average.

For fun, I queried individual contributors to the Capital Weather Gang for their snowfall predictions for Reagan National Airport this winter, which are summarized below:

The average amount predicted by Capital Weather Gang contributors, 10.8 inches, falls squarely in the range provided in our winter outlook, but the range of 3.1 to 22 inches does show some diversity in opinion.

Capital Weather Gang reader forecasts

Apparently our readers have become pessimistic about snow after last winter’s near-shutout or were swayed by the consensus. Still, roughly 20 percent of readers remain optimistic about snow prospects and forecast above-average amounts.