Winter in Iowa looks to be… well we don’t know yet.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center issued the U.S. Winter Outlook Thursday.  La Nina is expected to influence conditions, making things drier and warmer in the southern portion of the country and wetter and cooler up north.  Ken Podrazik with the National Weather Service says how that will effect Iowa is unknown.

“They’ve put us at equal chances for both precipitation and temperature.  What that means is there’s not really a good enough signature to tell us one way or the other, to go above or below normal.  So that means we could be right at normal, or there’s a 33 percent chance of being above normal or 33 percent chance of being below normal.”

The La Nina weather pattern, which means sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean are cool, is predicted to be weak and potentially short-lived.