Here’s Your October To December Outlook

Starting warm, but then a bigger north-south temperature divide by the end of the year. That’s the updated temperature forecast for the rest of the year.

The latest October to December outlook from The Weather Company and Atmospheric G2 has just been released, and the forecast looks a lot like La Niña.

But first, let’s back up and show what we’re comparing to.

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La Niña cheat sheet:

- La Niña is expected to peak during the last quarter of this year. Here’s the latest ENSO forecast.

- La Niña typically leads to warmer, drier weather across the southern tier during the winter

- Wetter, cooler weather is more likely from the Northwest to the Midwest in La Niña

- Other weather and climate phenomena like polar vortex intrusions and the Pacific Blob can enhance or negate this typical El Niño or La Niña pattern

(Further beef up your forecast with our detailed, hour-by-hour breakdown for the next 8 days – only available on our Premium Pro experience.)

Month-by-Month Outlook

The rest of autumn is expected to stay warmer than average in the Central U.S., as it has been during the last week and is expected to be through the end of September. Both computer models and analogs for ENSO suggest this warmth will reign for the Central and Western U.S. in both October and November, as shown on the first two maps below.

By the beginning of winter in December, the area that is most likely to see cooler-than-average temperatures lines up nicely with the La Niña pattern map.

But there is disagreement in this forecast among the long-term models. Most suggest the relative warmth will recede southward, but how much warmth there will be and how far south are still in question.

If La Niña does become stronger, its influence is typically the strongest during the winter months. La Niña is known to bottle up cooler air in western Canada, which can occasionally spill over the border into the Northwest and Northern Plains.

Todd Crawford, Vice President of Meteorology at Atmospheric G2 and author of the outlook, expects a couple of cold events during the upcoming winter regardless.

(For even more granular weather data tracking in your area, view your 15-minute details forecast in our Premium Pro experience.)

Are you hoping the warmth will stick around or that winter to get here sooner?

Jonathan Belles has been a digital meteorologist for weather.com for 9 years and also assists in the production of videos for The Weather Channel en español. His favorite weather is tropical weather, but also enjoys covering high-impact weather and news stories and winter storms. He's a two-time graduate of Florida State University and a proud graduate of St. Petersburg College.