National Weather Service: La Niña Returning Later This Year

It looks like another extreme winter is in store for us for the 2021 - 2022 season: La Niña is expected to return later this year.

In case you don't remember, we actually experienced a La Niña winter for the 2020 - 2021 season. It was revealed in September of 2020 that La Niña conditions were likely and sure enough, we saw a pretty brutal winter. Thankfully, La Niña conditions wrapped up earlier this year.

That is not to say that we haven't experienced extreme conditions without La Niña. We have seen quite the summer, from extreme heat waves to one of the warmest Junes on record for Duluth. Drought has been a major issue for Minnesota and Wisconsin as well. At one point, air quality was poor due to wildfires burning in Canada.

As mentioned, it looks like our extreme conditions will continue as we head into the rest of the year. The National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center says there is a strong chance La Niña returns once again.

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What does La Niña bring to the Twin Ports when it strikes during the winter months? It usually means we see more snowfall than average, which is saying a lot considering what a usual winter looks like for us! It also means colder-than-average temperatures, which is also quite the statement considering how cold it gets here as well. (Remember in February 2021 when we saw nearly three-hundred hours of wind chill advisories in a row?!)

We can expect more of that later this year. Reports say La Niña will "potentially" emerge during September, October and November. It is expected to last for the 2021 - 2022 winter season.

This isn't just hearsay. The National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center says there is a sixty-six percent chance for seeing La Niña conditions into January of 2022. This is according to their latest report from earlier in July.

The Weather Channel echoed this sentiment, forecasting a warm fall for a good portion of the country thanks to what they call "the expectation of a La Niña comeback" once again. They also shared an outlook from August through the end of November, which is pretty mild for the most part as we for the big comeback.

While it is nice to see a bit into the future about what the forecast holds for the rest of the year, we do have our hands full right now, especially with the drought conditions. Despite some thunderstorm activity near the end of the month, we still need quite a bit of rain in order to get where we need to be across Minnesota and Wisconsin.

As for what is expected just one month ahead, into August, I turned to the Old Farmer's Almanac. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like we will be getting enough rain to make up for our drought conditions so far this year in the Twin Ports. However, according to their forecast, we will see some sunshine and mild conditions for the most part. Again, this is good news, considering the NWS says the La Niña comeback could happen shortly after.