'Dangerously cold' winter weather is back in forecast; and what happened to La Niña?
Thursday's weather will feature an Arctic blast for the Midwest and Northeast and still more lake-effect snow for the Great Lakes.
Cold air associated with a high-pressure area will move over the Upper Midwest on Thursday, bringing temperatures 15 to 25 degrees below average over parts of the northern Plains and upper Mississippi Valley, along with brutally cold wind chills. The cold weather has prompted cold weather advisories over parts of North Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, the National Weather Service said.
"The dangerously cold wind chills as low as 35 below zero could cause frostbite on exposed skin in as little as 10 minutes," the weather service in Duluth, Minnesota, warned.
AccuWeather meteorologist Alex Sosnowski said, "The magnitude of the frigid air will lose some of its potency while traveling over the bare ground in the Midwest and over the open and relatively warm waters of the Great Lakes, but the cold will still pack some sting as far to the south as the Ohio and Tennessee valleys from and as far to the east as the Appalachians and the Atlantic coast from Thursday to Friday."
Meanwhile, in the West, the ferocious Santa Ana winds will ease in Southern California, helping in the fight against the Franklin Fire in Malibu.
Lake-effect snow for the Great Lakes
Heavy lake-effect snow is falling downwind from the Great Lakes on Thursday, the weather service said.
Locations where 12-24 inches of snow will pile up include portions of northern Michigan, southwestern Ontario, northeastern Ohio and northwestern Pennsylvania, AccuWeather said. However, there will be places in western and northern New York, where 24-36 inches of snow will pile up.
A state of emergency is in effect for at least a dozen counties in western New York set to be pummeled with up to three feet of snow through Friday. State officials also issued several road restrictions due to the snowfall.
Overnight Thursday into Friday, the snow should be lighter in most areas. However, moderate to heavy lake-effect snow will develop downwind from Lake Ontario on Friday, the weather service said.
Santa Ana winds to ease
The fierce Santa Ana winds that have been plaguing southern California this week, fueling the Franklin Fire in Malibu, are forecast to wane Thursday. Humidity levels will also be on the rise Thursday in Southern California, which will help fight the fire.
On Thursday, rain and higher-elevation snow will move into Central California, producing light snow over the Sierra Nevada over the next few days, the weather service said.
La Niña still in the bullpen; what does this mean for our winter weather?
Federal forecasters announced Thursday morning that the long-promised La Niña climate pattern still isn't officially here yet. And they're not sure why.
"It's clear that the model predictions have recently been too cold," the Climate Prediction Center's Michelle L'Heureux told USA TODAY. "The observed sea-surface temperature anomalies in the tropical Pacific have been on the cooler side of normal, but we're still falling short of our thresholds for La Niña."
She admitted that "the runway for the development of La Niña this winter is getting shorter."
However, forecasters said La Niña conditions are still most likely to emerge by January 2025 (59% chance), with a transition to "ENSO-neutral" most likely by March-May 2025 (61% chance).
La Niña is a phenomenon characterized by unusually cold ocean temperatures in the equatorial Pacific region and is linked to floods and drought worldwide.
If it forms, "this event is expected to be weak," said Johnna Infanti, a forecaster with the Climate Prediction Center. "Weak events still tilt the odds towards the typical La Niña impacts, but the impacts are less certain," she said.
In the U.S., typical winter La Niña impacts include wetter-than-average conditions for the Pacific Northwest and Ohio Valley, while the nation's southern tier tends to skew drier, Weather.com said. As for temperatures, "the north-central U.S. tends to be colder than average in La Niña winters. The South often sees above-average temperatures, but that doesn't mean there won't be periods of colder weather," Weather.com said in an online report.
Contributing: Victoria E. Freile, New York Connect Team; Reuters
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Winter weather in forecast: Arctic blast and snow for the Great Lakes
