Winter in the Midwest is expected to be mild, largely due to a super El Niño. And those temperatures and precipitation could have impacts on snowfall and your heating bill in the coldest months.

(MORE: Our complete coverage of El Niño)

Here's the outlook

The Weather Company's temperature outlook from December through February shows the Midwest with temperatures most above average of any region in the country, especially from northern Minnesota to Upper Michigan.

We also expect the winter to skew a little drier than average from the Northern Plains to the western Great Lakes.

This drier signal looks strongest in the Northern Plains in December and in the western Great Lakes and Upper Midwest in February, according to The Weather Company energy forecasting team.

(MORE: Complete US Winter Outlook)

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While El Niño isn't the only driver of the weather pattern, its likely record-breaking intensity is expected to exert a heavy influence this winter, given the northward displacement of the jet stream, according to the TWC forecast team.

Less snow

This combination of a warmer and drier winter paints a rather bleak picture for snowfall across the Midwest.

This forecast is consistent with past El Niño winters, which have generally produced less snow over most of the Midwest, especially more northern locations.

But less snow could also mean more events with rain or freezing rain in the Midwest.

Potential impacts

Less snowfall would have several impacts, including:

• Lower costs for snow removal and road salt for cities and counties
• Fewer travel delays
• More reliance on machine-made snow at ski areas with a shorter ski season possible
• Less reliably snow-covered trails for snowmobiles
• Less shoveling or plowing out your driveway or sidewalk

(MORE: How El Niño could impact your winter getaway travel)

And a warmer winter could also have these impacts:

• Less heating demand and lower utility costs, if weather was the only factor
• Less ice cover on lakes, shortening the ice fishing season

What happened during the last super El Niño winter?

The last super El Niño 11 years ago surely delivered on the warmth.

December 2015 through February 2016 was America's record warmest winter at the time, though that has since been surpassed by winter 2023-24 and 2025-26, according to NOAA.

As you can see in the map below, it was most anomalously warm in the northern U.S.

But it wasn't a dry winter.

Swaths of the Midwest and Plains were wetter than usual in 2015-16.

Iowa had its record wettest winter since 1895. Wisconsin narrowly missed its record wettest winter but has since shattered it in 2018-19 and 2022-23, according to NOAA.

There were at least some modest reductions in snowfall that winter in most of the Midwest.

For example, Minneapolis-St. Paul picked up 36.7 inches of snow throughout that fall-winter-spring season in 2015-16. But that's almost 15 inches less snow than average for the Twin Cities.

Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite topics. Reach out to him on Bluesky, X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook.