CHICAGO (CBS)— New winter outlooks from the NOAA Climate Prediction Center released Thursday call for a typically cold winter across the Upper Midwest. Wetter-than-normal weather is likely, which could mean more snow than usual in northern Illinois and northwest Indiana.
NOAA’s seasonal outlooks are driven partially by the El Niño/La Niña cycle, a naturally oscillating phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean near the equator of either warmer than normal or cooler than normal water.
According to NOAA, we are still in a neutral state as we transition from last year’s El Niño to the anticipated La Niña, but temperatures have been cooling rapidly in that region of the ocean, signaling that a La Niña may be imminent.
La Niña is favored to emerge in the next two months and is expected to persist through at least February 2025.
During this winter’s La Niña event, cold waters in the Pacific will push the polar jet stream over the U.S. northward. This tends to lead to drought in the southern U.S. and wetter weather in both the Pacific Northwest and Midwest regions.
The position of the jet stream also typically leads to warmer than normal weather in the southern U.S. and normal or colder than normal weather in northern areas…