La Nina has 71% chance of returning this fall. Good news for Seattle winter fans?

[TL; DR: SCOTT SAYS IT’S (PROBABLY) GOING TO SNOW THIS WINTER! Thanks for reading!]

TS; WSN: (Too short, want Scott’s novel): NOAA has released their updated monthly forecast for the La Niña/El Niño cycle (otherwise known by the very government-worthy acronym of ENSO — El Niño / Southern Oscillation, as opposed to ENSA – “E-Gad ‘Nother Silly Acronym”) and has now increased the odds of La Niña returning this autumn to a whopping 71% — or about the same odds you encountered someone camping in the left lane on I-5 today.

First quick primer on ENSO: It’s the 5-7 year cycle of warming and cooling in the equatorial Pacific that has large-scale impacts on global weather patterns. El Niño is when it’s warmer than 0.5C above average; La Niña is when it’s 0.5C cooler than average. I’ll put a link with more info in the comments for those wanting a deeper dive.

NOAA says this La Niña looks weak and short-lived, with “neutral” conditions (as in neither La Nina nor El Niño conditions) returning in the winter.

YOU’RE MAKING ME REGRET NOT STOPPING AT TL; DR. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR US?

Usually, La Niña winters are music to winter fans’ ears because in most (but not all) cases, La Niña winters tend to lean cooler and wetter as an overall theme, which means healthy mountain snowpacks, a decent ski season, better chances for lowland snow, but generally a rainier than usual winter (which, yeah, is saying a lot.)

(El Niño winters trend the opposite: Milder and drier with a weak ski season and diminished chances of lowland snow.)

Neutral winters are their own beast and tend to be the stormier winters but with larger breaks in between. I picture neutral winters as getting stuck in patterns for a few weeks at a time, and we’ll usually have like 2-3 weeks of relentless rains, then maybe 2-3 weeks of dry, foggy weather, and maybe an extended cold (snowy?) snap tossed in. Our greatest windstorms have mostly come during neutra winters.

CAN I STOP READING NOW? WILL I MISS ANYTHING GOOD HERE IF I HEAD OVER TO MY INSTAGRAM FEED NOW?

There may be a cute kitten video in it if you stay till the end here. Weather AND kittens: How can IG compete with that?
Last winter was possibly a good roadmap of where we might go this winter. It was a winter that was technically neutral but right on the cusp of a La Niña, then briefly reached La Nina late. It still acted like a neutral winter until La Niña got a better grip at the end, and we had a cool/wet end of winter and spring.

But during the neutral period we had:

Long wet pattern? It rained every day from Nov. 9-27, and again every day from Dec. 12-30.
Long dry pattern? It only rained twice (0.04” total) between Jan. 11-29.
Long cold pattern? It snowed at times nearly every day between Feb. 1-14.

So maybe this winter with expected La Niña-> neutral instead goes in reverse: a cool & wet (snowy?) November/December followed by an occasionally stormier but more variable January-March. (Lower confidence though in that; usually a full La Niña winter has more effect on the Jan-March than the Oct-Dec time frame.)

NOAA’s seasonal outlook for December-February (and also the following one into March) is somewhat in agreement with my idea, leaning for below-average temperatures. (That’s the map below…)

DOES THIS MEAN IT WILL SNOW IN SEATTLE THIS WINTER?

Sure!*

DARE I ASK ABOUT THE ASTERISK?

Seattle averages 11 inches of snow a winter (stop laughing! It’s what the actual stats say) but I’d think Seattle would get some snow in the sense that the Mariners should win at least 3 games a week. So odds are with me that it’ll snow at some point this winter (or, really, any winter). But will it be more snow than usual? I’d say odds are now leaning a bit in our favor.

OK I MADE IT. WHERE’S MY KITTENS?