WASHINGTON D.C. — A slowly-developing La Nina is favored to influence conditions for the upcoming winter across most of the country, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) U.S. Winter Outlook.
Released by the Climate Prediction Center — a division of NOAA’s National Weather Service, this outlook is for December 2024 through February 2025 and contains information on likely conditions throughout the country for temperature, precipitation and drought.
This winter, NOAA predicts drier-than-average conditions are expected from the Four Corners region of the Southwest to the Southeast, Gulf Coast and lower mid-Atlantic states.
“In September, we announced a $100 million investment into NOAA’s high-performance computer system to advance research on weather, climate and ocean predictions because understanding our climate system is essential for making longer-term predictions like the Winter Seasonal Outlook, which provides vital information for many of our partners and the public,” said Michael Morgan, Ph.D., NOAA’s assistant secretary of commerce for observation and prediction. “We continue to innovate in this space, developing new ways to share winter forecast information with the public.”
La Nina conditions are expected to develop later this fall and typically lead to a more northerly storm track during the winter months, leaving the southern tier of the country warmer and drier.
“Unfortunately, after a brief period in the spring of 2024 with minimal drought conditions across the country, more than a quarter of the land mass in the continental U.S. is currently in at least a moderate drought,” said Brad Pugh, operational drought lead with NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center. “And the winter precipitation outlook does not bode well for widespread relief.”
Warmer-than-average temperatures are favored from the southern tier of the U.S. to the eastern Great Lakes, eastern seaboard, New England and northern Alaska.
The I-95 corridor from Boston to Washington, D.C., have equal chances of below-average, near-average or above-average seasonal total precipitation.
NOAA’s seasonal outlooks provide the likelihood that temperatures and total precipitation amounts will be above-, near- or below-average, and how drought conditions are anticipated to change in the months ahead.
The outlook does not project seasonal snowfall accumulations as snow forecasts are generally not predictable more than a week in advance.
NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center updates the three-month outlook monthly. The next update will be available Nov. 21.
Seasonal outlooks help communities prepare for what is likely to come in the months ahead and minimize weather’s impacts on lives and livelihoods.
Resources such as drought.gov and climate.gov provide comprehensive tools to better understand and plan for climate-driven hazards.
