The National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center has released their latest short-term forecast peering into the first weeks of the new year; the outlook is rather mild.

In their latest update which covers the period January 4-10, 2021, the Climate Prediction Center believes there’s a 70% chance that temperatures will be above normal across the Great Lakes, northern Mid Atlantic, and New England. For much of the country, from the Pacific northwest to the Plains states and deep South, there are better chances of above normal temperatures than below.




The Climate Prediction Center believes there’s a slight chance of below normal temperatures over southeastern Nevada, southwestern Utah, and extreme southern California.  In this area, there’s a 40% probability of below normal readings in the prescribed period in January. The same is true for far northern Alaska where temperatures could be a bit below normal.

Otherwise, conditions are expected near-normal across much of the Rockies, Oregon, and California for this period.

This outlook is in-line with the seasonal outlook issued by NOAA in October for the 2020-2021 winter season.  Within days of the national release, Hawaii also released their seasonal outlook which also calls for above normal temperatures there.