KANSAS CITY — A likely La Niña pattern could worsen drought conditions across key US winter wheat growing regions this winter, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

In a recent winter outlook briefing, NOAA forecasters predicted the chance of La Niña developing in an October-November timeframe at 60%. For November-January, the odds will increase to 75%, making a La Niña emergence more than likely, forecasters said.

“As for the drought conditions this winter, we anticipate widespread moderate to extreme drought will persist across much of the Great Plains,” said Jon Gottschalk, chief of the operational prediction branch at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center. “Drought is most likely to develop for many areas of the Southwest, Southern plains and parts of the Southeast.”

During a La Niña event, shifting trade winds induce colder water temperatures off the West Coast, pushing the jet stream northward and leading to drier conditions across the southern and central portions of the nation.

The timing couldn’t be worse for key winter wheat growing regions. As of Oct. 15, the US Department of Agriculture’s drought monitor assessment already had recorded severe drought conditions across parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana, with smaller areas of extreme drought in northern and southwest Texas, parts of Oklahoma and Wyoming and small areas of southeast Kansas, western South Dakota and eastern Montana. Drought was at least moderate across the entirety of those states, except for Montana and Colorado, where conditions were not as severe in some areas.

The latest USDA Crop Progress report showed 73% of the 2025 US winter wheat crop planted as of Oct. 20, up 9 percentage points from a week earlier, 1 percentage point behind a year ago and 3 percentage points behind the five-year average. Kansas winter wheat area was 78% planted, Oklahoma 55% and Texas 65%.

“Some producers are opting not to plant in dust this year,” said Brad Rippey, a USDA meteorologist, noting that planting in Oklahoma was particularly behind schedule.

The USDA’s topsoil moisture monitor, meanwhile, recorded very short to short topsoil moisture across much of the Great Plains as of the week ended Oct. 20. Kansas was 78% very short to short, Oklahoma 81% and Texas 84%.

Despite persistently dry conditions, winter wheat producers are hoping for good emergence and some healthy growth before the crop goes into winter dormancy. As of Oct. 20, Kansas winter wheat was 48% emerged; Oklahoma 32%; Texas 40%; Colorado 62%; Nebraska 77%; South Dakota 60%; and Montana 67%, the USDA said.

“The same weather that has been ideal for harvest activities has been a detriment to getting some of this winter wheat crop emerged and established,” Rippey said.

For farmers looking for positives in the news, the likely La Niña pattern is predicted to be weak, NOAA forecasters said, and should only last through January-March 2025, if it develops. And while it would bring drier conditions to already dry portions of US farmland, other regions could benefit from increased precipitation.

“Typically, during La Niña conditions, the Ohio Valley, parts of the Great Lakes, especially later on in the winter months … we do see often, even though this is a weak La Niña, favored to have above-normal precipitation,” Gottschalk said. “So that would be very helpful to the Mississippi River as a whole, because a large fraction of that comes from the Ohio River input in the central Mississippi Valley.”

With Mississippi River water levels running below normal this autumn, Gottschalk added, La Niña could support grain shipments next spring, with about 60% of all US grain exports traveling down the river by barge to the Port of New Orleans.