A weather pattern over the Pacific Ocean often influences winter weather in Ohio, and this year will be no different.
El Nino is a warming trend for the Pacific, just off of equatorial South America, said Meteorologist Kristen Cassady with the National Weather Service in Wilmington. La Nina is a cooling trend.
"It affects the alignment of the jet stream and the jet stream is where you see these surface lows track and whatnot," she says. "The positioning of that jet stream ultimately determines whether you have some wintery cold weather or whether it's a little bit milder and wetter."
Cassady says this year, it's La Nina that is pushing the jet stream a little further north. She says that means, on average, milder temperatures for the Cincinnati area over the next three months.
"That would favor a wetter-than-normal pattern and a milder-than-normal pattern," she says. "But of course, you can still get snow if you're in these warmer and wetter patterns, it just takes the right storm track — or the wrong storm track, depending on how you look at it — to deliver a really impactful winter storm."
That was the case for much of mid-November and mid-December. "There was quite a dip in the jet stream across the eastern United States, which gave us that taste of winter before winter officially started," she says.
Cassady says it's very difficult to predict months in advance, but right now, she says it looks like we'll see a warmer, wetter pattern for the next two to three weeks.
For the next few days, that holds true.
If you're dreaming of a wet Christmas, you're probably going to get your wish. Cassady says in this part of the country, the weather will be tender and mild.
Millions of Americans are expected to travel more than 50 miles for the holidays over the next two weeks.
She says for those traveling to the west coast, expect to get wet.
"Anywhere from Washington to California, it's going to be very wet. For the mountains, a lot of snow through the upcoming week. They have a quite an active pattern out there," she says. "The center part of the country is going to be very quiet and dry, and very warm as well."
She says the northeast part of the country will be wet, but cooler.
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