{"id":3031,"date":"2011-12-09T14:05:20","date_gmt":"2011-12-09T20:05:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=3031"},"modified":"2012-02-09T16:36:11","modified_gmt":"2012-02-09T22:36:11","slug":"a-dryer-hotter-than-normal-winter-on-the-way-for-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2011\/12\/09\/a-dryer-hotter-than-normal-winter-on-the-way-for-texas\/","title":{"rendered":"A Drier, Warmer Than Normal Winter on the Way for Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier this week, we took a look back at the <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2011\/12\/07\/the-year-in-texas-weather-yes-it-was-awful\/\">awful year of weather<\/a> that Texas had in 2011. Now it&#8217;s time to look forward, and new <a href=\"http:\/\/www.climatewatch.noaa.gov\/image\/2011\/2011-2012-winter-outlook\">winter weather predictions<\/a> from the National Oceanic and Atsmopheric Administration do not bode well for a possible end to the drought.<\/p>\n<p>First, this winter&#8217;s weather doesn&#8217;t look like it will buck the trend of higher temperatures:<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_3036\" class=\"module image center mceTemp\" style=\"width: 620px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\"Winter temperature outlook\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/12\/WinterTempOutlook2011_7201.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-large wp-image-3036\" title=\"WinterTempOutlook2011_720\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/12\/WinterTempOutlook2011_7201-620x290.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"620\" height=\"290\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/12\/WinterTempOutlook2011_7201-620x290.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/12\/WinterTempOutlook2011_7201-300x140.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/12\/WinterTempOutlook2011_7201-220x102.jpg 220w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/12\/WinterTempOutlook2011_7201.jpg 720w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Map by NOAA Climate Program<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\" style=\"text-align: center;\">Winter temperature outlook<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Much of the state has a fifty percent chance of temperatures well above normal this winter. And it doesn&#8217;t look like this there&#8217;s going to be much rain, either.<!--more--><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_3037\" class=\"module image center mceTemp\" style=\"width: 620px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\"Winter precipitation outlook\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/12\/WinterPrecipOutlook2011_7201.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-large wp-image-3037\" title=\"WinterPrecipOutlook2011_720\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/12\/WinterPrecipOutlook2011_7201-620x291.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"620\" height=\"291\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/12\/WinterPrecipOutlook2011_7201-620x291.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/12\/WinterPrecipOutlook2011_7201-300x141.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/12\/WinterPrecipOutlook2011_7201-220x103.jpg 220w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/12\/WinterPrecipOutlook2011_7201.jpg 719w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Map by NOAA Climate Program<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\" style=\"text-align: center;\">Winter precipitation outlook<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><div class=\"related-content alignright\"><h4 class=\"related-header\">Related<\/h4><div class=\"links\"><h5>Posts<\/h5><ul><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2011\/12\/07\/your-burgers-about-to-cost-more-thanks-drought\/\">Your Burger\u2019s About to Cost More Thanks to The Texas Drought<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2011\/12\/07\/the-year-in-texas-weather-yes-it-was-awful\/\">The Year in Texas Weather (Yes, it was\u00a0Awful)<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2011\/12\/08\/visualizing-drought-and-heat-in-texas\/\">Visualizing Drought and Heat in\u00a0Texas<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div><div class=\"topics\"><h5>Topics<\/h5><p class=\"topic\"><img class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/08\/WaterinTexas1-60x60.jpg\" height=\"60\" width=\"60\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/topic\/water-in-texas\/\">Your Guide to Water Issues In\u00a0Texas<\/a><\/p><p class=\"topic\"><img class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/11\/119835727-60x60.jpg\" height=\"60\" width=\"60\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/topic\/drought\/\">Everything You Need to Know About the Texas Drought<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div>That&#8217;s a fifty percent chance of &#8220;well below normal&#8221;\u00a0precipitation (against patterns from the last 40 years) for most of Texas this winter, which means lower chances for drought relief.<\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s behind all this?\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.elnino.noaa.gov\/lanina_new_faq.html\">La Ni\u00f1a<\/a>, a weather pattern where the surface temperatures are cooler in the Pacific, which creates drier, warmer weather in the southern U.S. (You may also know her counterpart, El Ni\u00f1o, which has the opposite effect.) La Ni\u00f1a\u00a0sticks around for a year, sometimes longer, and tends to return once every few years. The last La Ni\u00f1a occured in 1995.<\/p>\n<p>The good news? <a href=\"http:\/\/www.elnino.noaa.gov\/lanina_new_faq.html\">La Ni\u00f1a<\/a> happens with half the frequency of El Ni\u00f1o. So it could be that we see a cooler, wetter El Ni\u00f1o arrive sometime after next spring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier this week, we took a look back at the awful year of weather that Texas had in 2011. Now it&#8217;s time to look forward, and new winter weather predictions from the National Oceanic and Atsmopheric Administration do not bode well for a possible end to the drought. First, this winter&#8217;s weather doesn&#8217;t look like [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":3037,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[58],"tags":[61,110,85],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3031"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3031"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4286,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3031\/revisions\/4286"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}