A look at the oceans shows that the Pacific has cooled considerably in 2017, and we have technically entered a La Niña episode. All of that "blue and green" off the West Coast of South America is indicative of cooler than average water and represents a developing La Niña.

It looks like a weak La Niña episode is going to be an influence for this upcoming winter, and possibly last into spring. The graphic below shows several models and their ENSO forecast. The yellow line is the mean of all of the models...

The models keep us in a weak La Niña through late winter, before weakening the signal as we head into spring.

What weather pattern usually influences the United States during a La Niña? Check out the map below.

Let's look at the latest models and what they have to say for the next three months.

NMME Model Forecast

Temperature

Precipitation

The NMME Model would suggest average to slightly below average precipitation, with average to above average temperatures for California.

CFS Model Forecast

Temperature

Precipitation

The CFS Model shows average average to above average temperatures, with below average precipitation for the entire state. This is somewhat troubling, as weak La Niña conditions can often bring drier than average conditions to the state. While we think the northern 1/3 of the state will do better with moisture than the southern 2/3, we are still a bit concerned about this trend.

JAMSTEC Model

Temperature

Precipitation

The JAMSTEC Model shows much drier than average conditions for the state during the wet season. It also shows above average temperatures for the winter. Again, this does concern us in that the JAMSTEC has been showing drier than average conditions for California for a while now. Again, we believe that the northern 1/3 of the state will do better than the southern 2/3...

Right now, we believe the southern 2/3 of the state will be drier than average while the northern 1/3 of the state will be average to wetter than average. Temperatures should be average to warmer than average north, with warmer than average temperatures expected south.

Winter Outlook
Below is our temperature and precipitation winter (Dec, Jan, Feb) outlooks:

Temperatures

Precipitation