La Nina

One typical feature of the La Nina weather pattern is an active storm track across the north. Last year, the winter of 2020 and 2021, that didn't happen. There was actually a block in the atmosphere that developed over Canada that prevented some of that storminess from reaching the northern United States that actually planted the seed for what would become the summer drought of 2021 across the Northern Plains, the Upper Midwest and the Northwest. Usda meteorologist Brad Rippy says that block is not in place this year, so we do expect a more typical La Nina to unfold across the North, and that could lead to significant drought relief all the way from the Pacific Northwest across the northern Rockies and onto the northern plains and into the Upper Midwest. At the same time, we could see a transition or a flipping of the drought across the United States, where some of the driest northern areas begin to see drought relief. But some of the areas in the south started to see drought development or intensification.