NOAA winter outlook predicts another La Niña and no end to extreme drought

Dylan Stableford
·Senior Writer
Updated ·2 min read
3.3k

Winter is coming, and U.S. forecasters are predicting the extreme drought that is affecting more than half of the country will continue, especially in the West.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's winter outlook, which was released Thursday by the National Weather Service, La Niña — a weather phenomenon caused by the natural cooling of seawater in the tropical Pacific Ocean — will return for the third consecutive winter.

The climate pattern affects the position of the jet stream, resulting in dry conditions in the southern half of the country and wetter conditions in the northern half. It's the opposite of El Niño, which occurs when water in the Pacific Ocean is warmer than average.

Widespread extreme drought, which continues to persist across much of the West and Great Plains, will continue with La Niña in place.

“Parts of the Western U.S. and southern Great Plains will continue to be the hardest hit this winter,” said Jon Gottschalck, operations chief of NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center. “With the La Niña climate pattern still in place, drought conditions may also expand to the Gulf Coast.”

However, drought conditions are expected to improve across the Pacific Northwest over the coming months — welcome news for people in Oregon and Washington who are choking on wildfire smoke that has covered the region.

NOAA’s winter outlook calls for warmer-than-average temperatures for the South and Southwest and wetter-than-average conditions for areas of the Midwest, northern Rockies and Pacific Northwest.

The greatest chances for warmer-than-average conditions are in western Alaska, the central Great Basin and the Southwest, extending through the southern Plains, forecasters say, while wetter-than-average conditions are most likely in store for western Alaska, the Pacific Northwest, northern Rockies, Great Lakes and Ohio Valley.

The seasonal outlooks are meant to provide American communities with a rough guide for temperatures, precipitation totals and drought conditions for the 90-day period.

The winter outlook does not project seasonal snowfall accumulations, as those forecasts are “generally not predictable more than a week in advance,” NOAA said.