Depending on where you farm, don’t bet on winter bailing us out of this long dry spell.

Dry falls usually portend a drier-than-normal winter, says Kyle Elliott, meteorologist at Millersville University in Lancaster, Pa. And with the development of a weak La Niña, the ingredients are there for drought to continue.

“We need some rain, like now,” Elliott says. “You don’t want it to be dry going into winter, and this foreshadows a very dry winter.”

To say it’s been a dry fall is an understatement. October ranked as the all-time driest month on record for eight of the Northeast's 35 major climate sites, according to the Northeast Regional Climate Center.

Why is it so dry right now? Simply put, the skies are starved of moisture.

“There is a lack of energy across the country,” Elliott says. “The jet stream is far north, abnormally far north. Usually, the jet stream is farther south. And that’s where the storms have been going, to the north.”

The National Weather Service recently put out its 2025 winter weather outlook, calling for warmer-than-normal temperatures and “equal chances” for precipitation across the mid-Atlantic and Northeast.

Across southeast Pennsylvania, Elliott expects it to be warmer and drier.

“Overall, I’m expecting temps above normal, snowfall below normal,” he says. “For Lancaster County, 10 to 20 inches of snow, which is below normal, and 2 to 4 degrees above normal temperatures. There is potential for a cold snap, a very good cold snap, toward the holidays. We could see something like that happening again. But we could see temperatures well above normal for much of the season, perhaps running 8 to 15 degrees above normal at times."

What will La Niña bring?

Speaking at a recent crops conference in Grantville, Pa., Matt Reardon, senior computational scientist for Nutrien Ag Solutions, said a typical La Niña results in cold, snowy conditions to the north and west, and warm, dry conditions to the south and east — mainly because of the jet stream taking a dive through the central U.S.

This could spell good news for farmers in Michigan and Ohio, who may benefit from storms shifting in their direction, but bad news for mid-Atlantic and Northeast farmers who may miss out.

But the correlations aren't always perfect, Reardon noted. This year’s La Niña is expected to be weak, which sometimes allows storms to form in the South and hug the coast, the classic Nor’easter that dumps a lot of snow in the interior. Most of the time, though, storms form farther north, bringing mixed precipitation to the east and snow to the west.

Another factor to watch is the North Atlantic Oscillation. When the oscillation is positive, it causes the jet stream to go across the north Atlantic Ocean, leaving cold air locked in the Arctic.

If it turns negative — where the subpolar low pressure and subtropical high pressures are weaker than normal — the jet stream changes course, allowing more cold air to dip down into the U.S., especially the East Coast. This results in cold shots and better chances for snowfall.

Reardon said the oscillation is expected to turn negative in December, providing a better shot for cold, snowy conditions early.

The La Niña could be stronger than forecast, which might lead to better chances of precipitation. But Reardon isn’t convinced.

"I think we're going to see a weak La Niña, that's going to persist this dry concern we're seeing through winter," he said.

The too-early spring outlook

What will happen after winter? Yes, it’s early for predictions. But looking at similar years with weak La Niñas, Reardon said it is usually followed by continued dry weather, except the mid-Atlantic.

"These La Niña summers after weak La Niña winters fade away; you get these ridges building over Iowa and parts of the Midwest. It could lead to wet stuff in the mid-Atlantic and Northeast,” he said.

Elliot says it’s hard to predict anything this far out, but one additional thing that could affect future weather is the state of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.

Right now, Elliott says it is rated as “strongly negative,” nearly a record, which tends to favor colder, snowier weather in the North and West, and very warm, dry conditions in the South and East. He expects this to continue through winter, which could throw another wrench into our local weather.

“Overall, it’s just not setting up for a very good growing season next year. But it’s early,” he says.