How Will the Coming La Niña Winter Affect Kentucky and Indiana?

Before we winter settles in, I always check to see if we'll be getting El Niño or its sister La Niña. I've heard these terms for nearly 40 years, since the first time I ever took a meteorology class. You hear them every year, too. But it's always more helpful when the terms are just thrown out there.

What Is El Niño?

First of all, both El Niño and La Niña can mean LOTS of precipitation; it just depends on where you live. Last year, Kentucky and Indiana experienced the climax of an El Nino which is a warming of the ocean's surface in the central and eastern regions of the Pacific. It typically leads to warmer and drier winters here in the tri-state.

What Is La Niña?

It's the opposite of El Niño which makes sense. Therefore, you can surmise that this atmospheric phenomenon is a cooling of the ocean's surface in the same Pacific regions. As a result, our part of the country tends to experience colder and wetter than normal weather in the winter.

Now, in my research I found something interesting. I've always assumed we'll always get either an El Niño or a La Niña winter. But this graphic indicates we can fall right in between, on occasion. It just so happens this winter isn't one of those occasions.

So, does this mean we'll be getting a ton of snow? Not necessarily. A wetter-than-normal winter can simply mean way more rain than we'd like.

But keep the glass half-full. If we're going to get more precipitation, I wouldn't mind SOME snow every now and again. Nothing crippling, please, just some snow.