Video: La Nina may keep hanging around

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SEATTLE – Snow on baseball's opening day?

Freezing rain and snow during a springtime evening commute?

Blame it on La Nina.

"It was like crazy downtown. There was snow and sleet and hail and stuff. I'd never seen it like that before," said Don Cox, a Tri-Cities resident visiting Seattle Monday.

Up at Snoqualmie Pass, it may have been bright and sunny Tuesday, but don't forget the history of this past winter. It snowed almost non-stop from mid-December through mid-February. And, there's still fresh snow up there.

"We're getting crazy weather, cold snaps, on top of a La Nina effect. You're getting a double whammy basically," said Mike McPhaden of NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Lab.

La Nina is when cooler than normal ocean water builds up off Central and South America, giving us cooler than normal temperatures and more snow.

Climatologists saw La Nina coming, but not this severe.

"Certainly the strongest La Nina in the past ten years and possibly in the past 25," said McPhaden. He thinks La Nina will influence our weather at least through April and taper off. But, other forecasts call for La Nina to keep going, raising the possibility of more wild weather next winter.

If La Nina does keep going, it's not expected to have much of an influence on our summer.