Ah, late autumn, when we all gather around the Thanksgiving turkey in our flip-flops and cutoffs, raise our frozen drinks to friends and family, and jump in the pool. But while it may be true that this year we can swim any day in November, January’s not making any promises, at least according to several teams of local weather forecasters, who’ve compiled their tea leaves and groundhog shadows into predictions for the coming winter. Enjoy the warmth while you can readers; the weather outside is about to turn frightful. Maybe.

A number of factors, including El Niño and something called the North Atlantic Oscillation, have led forecasters to predict below average temperatures for January through March (and particularly January) along with above average precipitation. Capital Weather is anticipating January temps between two and four degrees colder than normal along with precipitation some 20 to 30 percent higher than normal. CW goes on to predict between 19 and 25 inches of snow for D.C. and the Virginia suburbs and between 23 and 29 inches for Montgomery County (Prince George’s is only supposed to get 17 to 23 inches; sorry kids). Accuweather and ABC7’s Doug Hill are also predicting a colder than normal winter, with snowfall about 150 percent of normal for the metropolitan area.

We know we ought to take all this with a six foot drift of salt, but we can’t help it; we’re convinced and we’re excited. How about you guys? We’ll test out the wisdom of (DCist reading) crowds with our snow poll. How much snow do you think the area can expect this winter?

Post art by Martin Austermuhle. Thanks to Catherine Andrews for assistance with this post.