Sioux Falls, SD — La Niña climate conditions have emerged for the second winter in a row according to NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center — a division of the National Weather Service. And while that usually has certain outcomes for certain areas, it’s too early to tell for the Upper Midwest.
In NOAA’s 2021 Winter Outlook — which extends from December 2021 through February 2022 — wetter-than-average conditions are anticipated across portions of the Northern U.S., primarily in the Pacific Northwest, northern Rockies, Great Lakes, Ohio Valley, and western Alaska.
Warning Coordination Meteorologist Peter Rogers with the weather service’s Sioux Falls office tells us they have many tools, but right now the one that’s the most useful is the temperature of waters in the Pacific Ocean.
He says that the problem is the current models don’t tell us what to expect for our area, with equal chances of it being warmer, colder, snowier, and less snowy.
He says you don’t have to travel too far away from our area for there to be stronger chances one way or the other as far as temperature predictions, and a little further away there are clearer chances as far as precip. But right here — a colder, warmer, snowier, and less snowy — as well as a fairly normal winter are all equally as likely.
