If you want to predict the weather, forget about sunspots or woolly caterpillars. The Pacific Ocean holds the key to what’s going on here. National Weather Service Meteorologist in Wilmington Matthew Campbell says that’s what long-range forecasters are looking at.

“We’re looking at more of what’s going on in the Pacific: Will there be a La Nina, or an El Nino? That’s the kind of thing we’re looking at,” he says. “With La Nina, you generally get cooler temperatures off the coast of South America, compared to El Nino, where you get warmer temperatures that occur.”

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Campbell says a La Nina pattern is expected this winter, “which generally could give us at least a more active weather pattern here in the Ohio Valley. So maybe more precipitation but as far as where the temperatures go, it just depends on: Do the fronts go through Ohio , they stay north of us It’s impossible to tell this far.”

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The first snow of this season is expected to begin Wednesday night, with a wintry mix, and continue into Thursday.

“Yeah, Nov. 20 — we’re not too out of sync here,” Campbell said the day WVXU spoke with him. “We generally get our first snow accumulation, it can happen at the end of November, so it’s not too unusual.”

Campbell says if it is warmer than usual, we may see more rain than snow in the next three months, although there are no guarantees for either yet.