AUSTIN (KXAN) -- For the first time this year, La Niña is forecast to last all winter.

Previous outlooks favored La Niña to form in the fall and only continue into the beginning of winter. That meant that for the period of December-February, meteorological winter, ENSO Neutral had been favored.

But on Thursday, NOAA's Climate Prediction Center revised its outlook and now La Niña is favored for meteorological winter with 54% odds, ENSO Neutral at 43% odds and El Niño at just 3%.

ENSO stands for El Niño-Southern Oscillation and helps describe the climate pattern influenced by the waters of the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean.

When sea surface temperatures are 0.5ºC below average or colder and the atmosphere reacts, we enter a La Niña phase of ENSO. Conversely, El Niño is when the sea su

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