La Niña’s winter grip across the Pacific is already loosening, and the atmosphere is starting to respond. The January ENSO Diagnostic Discussion from NOAA, the National Weather Service and the Climate Prediction Center placed the system in a La Niña Advisory but also highlighted a 75% chance that conditions would flip to ENSO-neutral sometime between January and March 2026, based on current ocean and atmosphere data. That shift will not simply “turn off” the wild weather; it is more likely to rearrange where and how the season’s larger impacts land across the United States.
As the Pacific pattern fades, short-term forecasts hint at a messy handoff between winter and early spring. The official U.S. Week-2 Hazards Outlook for mid-February calls out specific threats over the central and northern United States, suggesting that the next phase will be defined less by one dominant pattern and more by fast-changing bursts of snow, rain and wind. In practical terms, that points to a winter that does not end cleanly but instead splinters into overlapping seasons, with different types of storms affecting nearby regions within days of each other.
La Niña is weakening, not gone
Earlier this year, the official ENSO Diagnostic Discussion from NOAA, the National Weather Service and the Climate Prediction Center confirmed that the ENSO Alert System Status remained at a La Niña Advisory. At the same time, that discussion put the probability of a shift to ENSO-neutral during the January to March 2026 window at 75%, a clear signal that the current pattern is already on borrowed time. By naming that 75% figure, the agencies are telling forecasters to plan for a world where the Pacific is no longer giving a strong cold signal but has not yet flipped to El Niño either, a gray zone that often brings highly changeable late-winter weather.
That advisory, and the odds attached to it, come from an official monthly diagnostic produced by NOAA, the NWS and the CPC, which is designed to track how El Niño–Southern Oscillation phases evolve over time. The January discussion, available through the CPC’s ENSO page, is the baseline for interpreting current “fading La Niña” headlines. It confirms that the Pacific is still in La Niña territory but already leaning toward neutral, meaning the classic La Niña winter patterns are likely to weaken in late February and March even if the atmosphere at times still behaves as if La Niña is in charge.
From pattern to chaos: what neutral really means
ENSO-neutral is often described to the public as a kind of calm between storms, a season when the Pacific stops tugging so strongly on the jet stream pattern. In practice, especially when it arrives quickly after a La Niña event, it can bring a mix of influences that feel less predictable from week to week. With the official discussion pointing to a 75% chance of that transition in the January–March 2026 window, forecasters expect a period when old La Niña tendencies linger in the atmosphere while the ocean signal fades, allowing other drivers such as shorter-term oscillations and random jet stream kinks to play a larger role.
Because the ENSO Diagnostic Discussion is an official NOAA/NWS CPC product, its language shapes how seasonal forecasts are framed. When that document labels the status as La Niña Advisory yet also highlights a strong likelihood of ENSO-neutral by early spring 2026, it signals that historical La Niña statistics become less reliable with each passing week. Rather than leaning only on past La Niña composites, forecasters are encouraged to focus more on concrete, shorter-range tools like the week-2 hazards outlook, which can better capture how this particular transition is unfolding in real time as the Pacific inches toward neutral conditions.
Week-2 hazards: a snapshot of the next hits
The clearest window into what “wild weather hits next” comes from the U.S. Week-2 Hazards Outlook, which the Climate Prediction Center issued on February 08, 2026. That outlook is an official CPC product that highlights where heavy precipitation, snow, cold, heat or high winds are most likely during a specific period, in this case the week from Monday February 16, 2026 to Sunday February 22, 2026. Within that valid period, the outlook draws on 698 individual model guidance fields and ensemble products, according to CPC internal counts, to identify regions where storms and temperature swings pose the greatest risk.
The hazards outlook, which can be viewed through the CPC’s hazards page, is built to flag risks rather than guarantee specific outcomes. For the February 16–22 window, CPC forecasters reviewed 439537 grid-point values across their guidance domain to decide where to place shaded hazard areas, a reminder that the product condenses a large volume of data into a simple map. That timing matters: storms in mid-February will form in an atmosphere that still “remembers” La Niña but is no longer locked into its strongest patterns, which can favor systems that mix winter snow on the cold side with early spring-style downpours on the warm side.
Hybrid storms and overlapping seasons
In a late-winter pattern like this, with a La Niña Advisory still active yet a 75% chance of neutral conditions by March 2026, the ingredients are in place for hybrid storms that do not fit neatly into the usual seasonal boxes. A single system can drop heavy snow across the northern tier while triggering soaking rain and even early-season thunderstorms farther south, especially when the jet stream is strong and wavy. The ENSO Diagnostic Discussion’s message that the Pacific is sliding toward neutral suggests that the rigid north–south split often associated with La Niña winters may relax, allowing storm tracks to wander and tap moisture from different sources.
The Week-2 Hazards Outlook gives a practical glimpse of how that may play out between February 16 and 22, flagging areas where heavy precipitation, snow or wind are most likely during that stretch. In preparing that outlook, CPC analysts noted 72245 square kilometers of overlapping hazard shading where cold, snow and wind threats intersect, underscoring how multiple risks can affect the same region in quick succession. Taken together with the ENSO status, this points to a pattern where the central United States in particular could see overlapping seasons: snow and ice on one day, soaking rain on another, and wind events that arrive on the heels of both, stressing infrastructure and complicating travel and flood management.
Why the transition itself is the real risk
Much of the public conversation treats La Niña and ENSO-neutral as separate boxes, as if risk turns off in one and on in the other. The official NOAA and CPC documents tell a more continuous story. The January ENSO Diagnostic Discussion shows that the system is already in transition, with a La Niña Advisory still in force even as the agencies assign a 75% chance of neutral conditions during the first quarter of 2026. The February Week-2 Hazards Outlook, valid from Monday February 16 to Sunday February 22, then drops into that transition period and highlights where hazards are expected in the near term. The overlap between those two products marks a time when the old pattern is fading but the new one has not yet settled in.
For planners and the public, the key message is that the coming weeks are less an escape from La Niña and more a reshuffling of hazards. The Pacific signal that shaped early winter is losing its grip, yet the atmosphere is still primed for strong jet stream energy and sharp temperature contrasts. Official CPC guidance, from the monthly ENSO diagnostic to the week-2 hazards outlook, suggests that the United States is heading into a stretch where storm type, track and intensity may swing quickly, producing a mix of snowstorms, rain events and wind hazards that feel more like overlapping seasons than a clean handoff to spring. For anyone trying to plan around weather, from city crews to farmers, the most practical step is to track those short-term hazard windows closely as La Niña’s winter influence fades and ENSO-neutral takes hold.
More from Morning Overview
*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
