Pumpkins have turned a bit frosty this week. Autumn has quickly begun to feel more like winter in much of the United States, especially in the Northwest, where a powerful Pacific storm is expected to bring much colder temperatures and widespread mountain snow over the next few days. For some, it's a taste of what's to come this winter.
Experts with the NOAA's Climate Prediction Center announced their annual winter outlook on Thursday. With the anticipated dominance of the weather pattern known as La Niña, here's what they saw:
The East Coast and the southern parts of the United States are likely to see warmer and drier conditions.
Forecasters say it is likely the Northwest will see below-average temperatures and above-average precipitation.
Above-average precipitation is also possible in the Great Lakes region.
The Climate Prediction Center generally has a good track record of predicting the overall winter season -- which it defines as the months of December, January and February -- but this year making projections was more challenging than in 2023, said Jon Gottschalck, chief of the center's operational prediction branch.
He and his team based their outlook on historically similar years as well as forecast models and the current state of the weather patterns. But the upcoming winter was an especially difficult one to predict, with "frequent week-to-week changes" more likely as the season progresses, he said.
These are the areas that are more and less likely to get snow.
The Climate Prediction Center doesn't issue snowfall forecasts, but by looking at the areas where temperatures and precipitation are projected to be above or below average, one can deduce where snow is more and less likely. Here is where Mr. Gottschalck believes snow may or may not exceed expectations this winter.
More likely: The northwest parts of the North Central Rockies, and some areas in the Northern Plains and the western Great Lakes -- basically the Upper Midwest, especially later in the winter. New England, too, is more likely to see more snow, he said.
Less likely: Sad news for snow fans in the Mid-Atlantic and the lower parts of the Northeast, where he is expecting a little bit less snowfall than average. The southern Central High Plains and Great Plains, which include the Texas Panhandle, Oklahoma, Colorado and Kansas, are also expected to see less snow.
Why this year's winter forecast might not be as accurate as the previous one.
This year's forecast is built on the assumption that La Niña will form, and that it will be a weak one. La Niña is a weather pattern formed by cooler-than-average equatorial sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific, and is seen as the opposite of El Niño.
During winter months, it can push the jet stream farther north and create a conveyor belt of storm systems from Alaska down through the Pacific Northwest and through the Great Lakes, which is why this pattern can often lead to wetter and colder climates across these regions in a winter when La Niña is dominant.
La Niña also affects the paths winter storms take on the East Coast. These storms tend to be more inland, allowing warmer air into the major metros and dropping more ice or rain instead of snow. This is similar to the weather pattern that caused Central Park to go nearly snowless in the winter of 2022-23.
The stronger La Niña, or El Niño, is expected to be, the more confident forecasters will become in their seasonal predictions. In contrast, this year's La Niña is forecast to be weak or even remain neutral, which can affect the accuracy of the forecast.
During a more neutral year, the other patterns that can dictate winter weather are more random. Unlike El Niño and La Niña, those other weather patterns cannot be predicted as far in advance. Those unknowns then limit forecasters' confidence when they're drawing up a seasonal outlook. All of which has Mr. Gottschalck and his team delivering their forecast with more caveats than usual.
"The nature of a probabilistic forecast means that other outcomes are always possible, though they are less likely," he said.
Based on this forecast, though, it's OK to pull out your parkas and test your snow blowers. Snow is still possible -- it just might be less likely for some places compared with other years.