Forecasters say this year’s weak La Niña could push the region toward wetter or drier extremes.
For the second consecutive year, California may enter a La Niña weather phase starting in August 2025. The National Weather Service forecasts a 56% chance that this phenomenon—marked by sea surface temperatures dipping roughly 0.5 °C in the central and eastern Pacific—will materialize in the Northern Hemisphere.
Typically, La Niña brings wetter winters to far Northern California and the Pacific Northwest, while Southern California trends drier.
However, San Francisco and the greater Bay Area remain at a climatic “inflection point.” Meteorologist Rachel Kennedy explains that the region could swing either wetter or drier this fall. “We really could go either wetter than normal or drier than normal,” she cautioned.
The current La Niña is expected to be relatively weak, likely giving way to neutral conditions by late winter or early spring.
As the pattern winds down toward the end of the year, the Climate Prediction Center anticipates above-average temperatures across much of Central and Southern California and even the broader continental U.S. For the Bay Area specifically, the odds of below-average precipitation between January and March 2026 range from 33% to 40%.
