NOAA Released It's 2024 Winter Outlook and It Doesn't Look Great for Current Drought Conditions

Written by Meteorologist Mary Wasson

Last updated 10/25/2024, 4:20:40 PM

Last week, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration released its U.S. Winter Outlook for 2024, forecasting a warmer, drier South and a wetter North.  

The latest forecast model indicates a slowly developing La Nina in the equatorial Pacific, which will influence the weather across the country this winter. 

According to the National Weather Service, during La Niña events, trade winds are stronger than usual, pushing warm water toward Asia, and in response, upwelling increases off the west coast of the Americas, bringing cold, nutrient-rich water to the surface. These cold waters in the Pacific push the jet stream northward. La Niña means Little Girl in Spanish. La Niña is also sometimes called El Viejo, anti-El Niño, or simply "a cold event." 

This winter, NOAA predicts that the northern tier of the continental U.S. will experience wetter-than-average conditions, especially in the Pacific Northwest and the Great Lakes region, as well as northern and western Alaska. In contrast, drier-than-average conditions are expected from the Four Corners region of the Southwest to the Southeast, the Gulf Coast, and the lower mid-Atlantic states.

This isn’t good news for the ongoing drought across the Central and Southern Plains. 

“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.”