MISHAWAKA, Ind. (WSBT) — If you have viewed our seasonal forecasts in the past, you may be familiar with our process. We basically look at two things. What happened here in the past and what is happening to global circulation patterns? The largest impacts typically come from changes in global circulation patterns.

You may remember that we talked about El Nino last year. El Niño is the warming of the waters of the Pacific Ocean near the equator and South America. This warmer water here influenced the way water and air currents moved around the globe and was responsible for our warmer and essentially snowless winter.

This year we are now seeing this pattern shift towards a La Nina. A La Nina means that sea water in the same location becomes colder than normal. This shift also has the trickle-down effect, changing air and water currents worldwide. Typically in the United States, this results in drier, warmer weather in the Southeast and an accumulation of significantly colder air over the Northwest. In the end we are in between.

A shift like this, from a strong El Nino one winter straight to a La Nina the next, doesn't always happen. So we looked back through our weather history and found that it had only happened 8 times!

So in those 8 years we looked at temperatures, total precipitation and snowfall. Overall, the average temperature in winter was slightly above average. Precipitation, which includes all types, averages above normal. However, the trend was for the beginning of winter to be wet and the end of winter to be drier.

The snowfall data is where things get interesting. One year there was only 38 inches of snow, another year it was 110 inches! However, overall snowfall averaged slightly ABOVE normal. What's more interesting, however, is when it fell. In ALL 8 years, every December has been colder and snowier than normal.

Less snow fell in January and February. But in 7 out of 8 years more than 20 cm of snow fell AFTER February (that means snow in March and April!)

With that story in mind and the forecast for La Nina this winter, here is our WSBT22 winter forecast for 2024/25

Temperatures:

The forecast is SLIGHTLY ABOVE NORMAL. That doesn't mean warm. The average temperature is 26.9 degrees and we're only talking about half a degree to a degree above normal. This still means typical cold air with occasional warm-up phases.

Precipitation:

The forecast is for slightly above normal precipitation. This includes all species. We are likely to expect a wetter December and less rainfall in January and February.

Snowfall:

A near-normal snowfall of 65 inches is forecast for the season. Looks like a snowy December, followed by lighter amounts of snow in January and February. Another element for this is the lake effect. Every month this year has been warmer than normal and that is keeping Lake Michigan warm. If cold air currents blow over the warm water, this could lead to some decent lake effect snow events.

It is important to note that the global signals we are getting this year are not as strong as last year. This means we have less confidence that the atmosphere will respond the way we think. Last year's STRONG El Nino was a HUGE signal and we were pretty confident about how the winter would pan out.

This year the La Nina is quite weak and that means there are more possible variables in play. The last four times we had a La Nina winter, we still had over 50 inches of snow, this winter is a little different due to the shift from El Nino to La Nina.

If you're wondering whether our unusually dry and arid conditions since July are playing a role in the winter ahead, the quick answer is not really. We looked for winters that followed similar drying patterns to the last four months, but there was no discernible trend.

Don't worry yet, you have plenty of time to prepare as there is no snow forecast for a while. Looks like a few more days in the 70s are on the way next week!