AUSTIN, Texas — The National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released its 2022-23 Winter Outlook on Thursday. It's calling for warmer and drier than normal conditions for Central Texas.
This is not a surprise given we are entering another La Niña winter. La Niña refers to cooler than normal water temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. These ocean temperatures have implications on the positioning of the jet stream and our overall weather patterns over North America.
Typically, La Niña tilts the odds in favor of warmer and drier than normal conditions here in Texas.
This year is likely to be our third consecutive La Niña winter. Three of the last five winters have had La Niña conditions. The last El Niño winter has 2018-19.
The winter of 2019-20 was what we call ENSO Neutral, meaning neither La Niña nor El Niño conditions were present.
Last year was as advertised with warmer and drier than normal conditions.
2020-21 was also a La Niña winter. However, notably with the February freeze, the winter ended up cooler and wetter than normal.
Two of the last three La Niña winters were drier than normal, as is favored. Accordingly, NOAA is calling for continued or worsening drought through the winter.
In summary, La Niña tilts the odds in favor of warmer and drier than normal winter conditions. However, La Niña does not mean this is a forgone conclusion as evidenced in years past.
Importantly, the averages also don’t always tell the whole story. Warmer than average winters can still have periods of cold weather. Drier than average winters can still have rain.
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The KVUE Weather team will be here for you whatever Mother Nature throws our way. In fact, we're tracking our next opportunity for beneficial rain coming in early next week.
The KVUE Weather Team will continue to monitor the forecast for next week closely. In the meantime, the extended forecast can be found below:
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