Winter In Connecticut: What La Niña Climate Pattern May Mean

CONNECTICUT — A new winter outlook holds some potentially good news for Connecticut residents who are bracing for dramatically higher heating bills.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s U.S. Winter Outlook for December through February, temperatures are leaning between 33 and 40 percent above normal in Connecticut. The weather wizards were not so decisive when it came to their rain and snow forecasts: NOAA says the winter weather could go either way, with equal chances afforded higher and lower than normal amounts of precipitation than last year.

A La Niña climate pattern returning for the third consecutive winter is driving warmer-than-average temperatures for the Southwest and along the Gulf Coast and Eastern Seaboard, according to the outlook.

Below-normal temperatures are favored from the Pacific Northwest eastward to the western Great Lakes and the Alaska Panhandle.

• Related: Winter Heating Costs Spike: How Much More Will CT Residents Pay?

Drought conditions are present across about 60 percent of the country, and the La Niña climate pattern may extend the drought to the Gulf Coast, Jon Gottschalck, of NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, said in a news release. Parts of the western U.S. and southern Great Plains will be the hardest hit by the dry weather, he said.

The predictions call for wetter-than-average conditions for areas of the Ohio Valley, Great Lakes, northern Rockies and Pacific Northwest.