While the Miss-Lou is currently enjoying the &uot;January thaw&uot; after enduring a bitterly cold December, more cold weather will be returning to the area soon.

Royce Fontenot of the Southern Regional Climate Center in Baton Rouge said the forecast for precipitation and temperature through the upcoming summer season will have a lot more variability because the nation is going through &uot;La Nada,&uot; the period between &uot;El Nino&uot; and &uot;La Nina.&uot;

&uot;It should be interesting,&uot; he said.

Fontenot said Miss-Lou area will have above-normal temperatures through March, but &uot;it will be cooler than it has been in the last three years.&uot;

He also said that the area will probably have another one or two blasts of Arctic air during the remainder of the winter.

Nationwide, he said the South will have above-normal temperatures, but not as warm as in previous years; the Northeast will be &uot;not quite normal&uot;; and the Great Lakes and Midwest will be below normal.

He said the Miss-Lou area will be near normal in temperature and precipitation during the spring season. Fontenot said he couldn’t predict if the region would endure another hot summer like it did in 2000.

&uot;Severe weather is hard to predict in advance,&uot; he said.