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There is a 71 percent chance of La Niña affecting the climate from October to December 2025, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center said in an update.
NOAA said a transition to La Niña is "likely in the next couple of months" from an El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO)-neutral, the phase of ENSO where ocean temperatures and atmospheric conditions in the tropical Pacific are at neutral temperatures and neither El Niño nor La Niña is present.
NOAA told Newsweek that impacts on America could be "the conventional La Niña tilt toward drier conditions over the southern tier of the U.S. and wetter conditions over the northern Rockies and Ohio and Tennessee valleys."
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The agency added, though, that these forecasts were based on "probabilities and impacts are not guaranteed."
Why It Matters
La Niña is part of the naturally occurring global climate pattern, ENSO, and acts as an opposite to El Niño, and both can have profound impacts on American weather and climate.
The two phrases mean "the little girl" and "the little boy" in Spanish, La Niña typically causing eastern Pacific water to become colder than usual temperatures, and El Niño causing the sea temperatures to be warmer than average.
This means that La Niña typically brings drier, colder weather, with strong winds, which can lead to drought in some regions and also a more severe hurricane season. El Niño brings heavy rainfall, with increased risk of flooding, and warmer temperatures.
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What To Know
The NOAA said that sea temperatures remained near-to-below average in August 2025 across the central and eastern Pacific Ocean, which indicated that currently the climate was in the ENSO-neutral phase of the weather pattern, alongside other climate-related metrics.
However, the agency said, "All available models from the North American Multi-Model Ensemble favor La Niña to emerge and persist through the winter."
Chances of La Niña decrease to 54 percent in December 2025 to February 2026, but for the autumn to winter of 2025, the climate shift is "favored" in predictions, NOAA said.
"At this point, if La Niña forms - and this is still not guaranteed - it is most likely to be a weak event," NOAA told Newsweek.
"A weak event means that the chances of certain weather and climate impacts may be a bit lower than for a stronger event," the agency added.
Also, while the NOAA Climate Prediction Center forecast team issued a La Niña watch, "many models favor ENSO-neutral to prevail through the Northern Hemisphere fall and winter 2025 to 26," Marybeth Arcodia, a professor of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science at the University of Miami, told Newsweek.
The impacts of La Niña could be significant, and would vary region to region in the U.S.
The weather pattern would likely bring warmer drier conditions to the South, particularly along the Mexican border and into Florida, while the North may see wetter than average conditions.
In Central America, outbreaks of cold temperatures could occur, while in New England, New York and the Great Lakes, wet and cold conditions could bring heavier snowfall.
Last year, a La Niña weather pattern developed in December and lasted through to the spring, meaning it could potentially be the second year in a row the climate shift occurs.
"This time last year we were also in a La Niña Watch and eventually a weak La Niña even formed during winter 2024 to 25," NOAA told Newsweek, adding that in September 2024, the probabilities of a La Niña weather pattern were "slightly higher" than they are this year.
What People Are Saying
Raghu Murtugudde, a professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Ocean Science at the University of Maryland, told Newsweek: "NOAA is more gung-ho than others on this forecast. Other centers are mostly seeing neutral conditions but some cold [sea surface temperature] anomalies are in place in the eastern tropical Pacific. If the ocean-atmosphere interactions amplify this pattern, then we may have a La Niña but it's unlikely to be very strong."
Murtugudde added: "The U.S. will have mostly warmer fall temperatures in the west and milder fall in the eastern half. Winter precipitation can be below normal as well if La Niña does emerge. But we are still recovering from the record warm temperatures of 2023 to 24 so we have to see how the traditional La Niña teleconnection patterns may be modulated by this climate change signal in background."
Marybeth Arcodia, a professor of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science at the University of Miami, told Newsweek: "La Niña conditions typically favor a more wavy jet stream across the U.S. which results in colder and stormier, wetter conditions than normal in the Northern part of the U.S. and warmer, calmer, drier conditions in the South. La Niña also increases the chances for drier and warmer temperatures in the Southwest, Southeast, Southern California, and Texas—meaning that drought conditions could persist in the Southwest through the winter and into Spring, as well as wetter and colder in the Pacific Northwest, Intermountain West, and Ohio Valley, meaning a drought improvement could be seen in the Pacific Northwest."
She added: "The NOAA Climate Prediction Center predicts that we will likely return to ENSO neutral conditions by the Spring of 2026. For February to April, there is roughly a 60 percent chance of neutral conditions, 25 percent for La Niña conditions, and 15 percent for El Niño conditions. ENSO-neutral conditions mean that ENSO-related patterns are likely to be closer to average, and we lose the extra forecasting skill that ENSO events usually provide. However, it's important to remember there are many other factors determining the weather we see on a day-to-day basis beyond just the ENSO conditions."
Richard Seager, a professor at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, told Newsweek: "There is already a good chance that La Niña conditions will continue to develop from September unto early 2026 with probability of La Niña conditions declining after that. However, these forecasts can change as conditions develop going into fall and winter. The system is not perfectly predictable by any means. Overall, the La Niña likely means continuing drought in the Southwest."
What Happens Next?
If the La Niña weather pattern does occur this year, it is forecast to come between October and December, with lower chances of it happening in the new year.
Update 9/12/25, 9:49 a.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from NOAA.
Update 9/12/25, 10:23 a.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from Arcodia.
Update 9/12/25, 11 a.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from Seager.
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