As this morning’s temperature reminds us, winter ain’t far off.

The National Weather Service has released its annual winter outlook with defined outlooks for either warm and dry or cold and wet conditions going into the winter season. Dave Miscus is a drought expert at the C-P-C. He says our temperatures over the next several months will likely dictate what we expect come spring as far as ongoing drought conditions go even if we do end up in a wetter than normal pattern.

So, the bottom line? The outlook has higher probabilities or colder and wetter conditions to our north along with drier and warmer conditions to the south, but nothing is definitive at this point, especially not knowing exactly how strong the developing La Nina pattern is going to be.