Earth Networks Winter Outlook: Plenty of Possibilities

What to Expect

The upcoming winter could see plenty of wild weather, but several places, like drought-stricken California and the parched Southeast could miss out on the action, says the Earth Networks Meteorology team in their annual 2016-2017 Winter Outlook.

After last winter’s strong El Nino fueled wild weather, the U.S. weather will likely be driven by La Nina, El Nino’s counterpart. La Nina is a periodic cooling of the equatorial Pacific Ocean that can have a varying effect on the weather across North America. Historically, La Nina can bring wetter and cooler weather to the northern U.S. and warmer and drier weather to the U.S.’s southern tier. However, here are a few of the highlights:

• Drought Continues – The La Nina pattern could keep winter rainfall away from southern and central California, bringing no drought relief. Higher temperatures and lower rainfall could also extend drought across the South and Southeast.
• Drought Cessation – The Northeast could see frequent winter storms, which could chip away at its growing precipitation deficit.
• Northern Big Chill  -- An expected active jet stream across the northern tier will  keep temperatures below average from the northern Rockies to the Great Lakes.
• Lake Effect Snow? – The active northern jet stream will likely send cold air across the Great Lakes, firing up the lake effect snow machine.

Even so, La Nina and other factors like northern Pacific and Atlantic ocean patterns seen this year isn’t offering a slam-dunk forecast. “There is no one clear cut strong signal for bitter cold outbreaks, excessive warmth or major winter storms in the U.S.” says Chad Merrill, Earth Networks meteorologist and lead forecaster on this year’s winter forecast.