For many areas, the colors of fall are nearing their peak vividness, or soon will be. Temperatures are beginning to turn cooler and here in Ohio, there are already more gray days.

There is no doubt that winter is well on its way.

What You Need To Know

  • La Niña to impact winter across the Ohio Valley

  • Temperatures are forecast to be near or a bit above normal

  • Precipitation will likely be above normal

  • Enhanced lake-effect snow events possible

You may recall back in September, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released information that said the upcoming winter would likely be impacted by a weather pattern called “La Niña”.

So what is La Niña?

La Niña is a weather pattern that occurs in the Pacific Ocean. In this pattern, strong winds blow warm water at the ocean’s surface from South America to Indonesia. As the warm water moves west, cold water from the deep rises to the surface near the coast of South America.

In the winter of a La Niña year, these winds are much stronger than usual. This makes the water in the Pacific Ocean near the equator a few degrees colder than it usually is. Even this small change in the ocean’s temperature can affect weather all over the world.

Of course, the biggest question is… what does this mean for us here in Ohio? To answer that, we like to look back at previous La Niña winters. We typically alternate between El Niño to La Niña weather patterns about every three to five years.

The last time La Niña impacted the weather in Ohio was during the winter of 2016-2017. That winter saw numerous warm spells across Ohio along with near record low snowfall amounts.

Going back a bit further takes us to a strong La Niña winter of 2010-2011. That winter dealt Ohio with plenty of cold and snow.

While it started out slow with little snow in November, some bigger snow events arrived by mid-December. Once we got into the early spring of 2011, precipitation just kept coming, leading to numerous rainfall records in Ohio.

As you can tell, the forecast of a La Niña winter does not really make it easier to determine the types of weather Ohio will receive.

What we do know, is that we typically have one extreme or the other. We will either see very little snow but a lot of rain, or, if it can get cold enough, some decent snow amounts.

Looking at the bigger picture for Ohio, we can expect the months of December through February to be quite active with more storm systems across the area. This will lead to an overall wetter than average pattern.

The key will be the temperatures.

In a typical La Nina winter, Ohio generally experiences near or slightly above normal temperatures. If this pattern holds, we would typically expect to see more rain than snow.

However, there will likely be numerous opportunities for arctic outbreaks to make it into the Ohio Valley. This could lead to a few bigger impact winter storms than neutral, non-La Niña years.

One other pattern noted in past La Niña years has been increased lake-effect snow events. That seems to be highly possible for our Snow Belt counites in northeast Ohio.