BOSTON - The National Weather Service released their 2024-2025 winter outlook Thursday, on the coldest morning of the season so far in Massachusetts. It calls for La Niña to play a big role.

What is the La Niña winter forecast?

Not surprisingly, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) based a large portion of their forecast on something we call ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation). Last winter it was all about the climate pattern known as El Niño. This year, it's the opposite. The National Weather Service is forecasting a 60% chance of a La Niña this winter.

While El Niño is primarily characterized by warmer than normal ocean temperatures off of South America, La Niña's signature is cooler than normal water in that same region.

So, given this forecast, we should expect a winter that is opposite from last winter right? Well, yes and no.

If you look at the "typical" patterns across the country we see large differences between El Niño and La Niña.

The Pacific Northwest is normally warm in El Niño's and cold and wet in La Niña's.

The Ohio Valley is typically dry in El Niño's but wet in La Niña's.

The entire southern tier of the U.S. flips from cool and wet during El Niño's to warm and dry in La Niña's.

La Nina impact

What about us here in the Northeast?

Well, the impacts and differences are not as obvious or stark. If often depends on the strength of the El Niño or La Niña. Last year, a relatively strong El Niño led to a very warm, snowless winter in Massachusetts.

This year we are expecting a weak La Niña. This likely won't lead to any major impacts in the Boston area, but instead, will allow for "other" large scale atmospheric factors to play a bigger role - like ocean temperatures in the Pacific and Atlantic, the Polar Vortex and any blocking that may develop across Canada and Greenland. This makes the winter forecast much more difficult to predict here in the Northeast.

NOAA's forecast looks a lot like a typical La Niña. They're expecting milder than average temperatures across the south and up the East Coast and colder than average in northwestern Canada down through the Upper Midwest.

As for precipitation, again a very typical La Niña look. Dry across the South and wet in the Ohio Valley.

WBZ Winter Weather forecast

The WBZ-TV Weather Team will make our official winter prediction in November.

However, at this point, I do not see any major reason or evidence to dispute the NOAA forecast.

We haven't had a truly cold winter here since 2014-2015 and the snowfall amounts in recent years have been laughably low. Given the current state of our oceans and atmosphere, I think it will be exceedingly difficult to get a below average winter, in terms of temperatures, this season.

Sure, there will be some periods of cold and some snow, but the early odds favor yet another mild winter for Massachusetts and southern New England in 2024-2025.

Our team will continue to monitor all the various, complex atmospheric factors that will play into the upcoming winter. As things unfold in the weeks ahead, we will keep you updated on what you can expect this winter!