Too Much Ice? Blame It On La Nina

I said in a blog entry last winter how Henry (PREMIUM | PRO) explained to me one day how La Nina was responsible for creating the unusual number of ice storms in the Plains & Midwest last winter.

Now that State College, Pennsylvania, home of AccuWeather HQ [Google Map] seems to be under the swath of unusual ice storms, I thought I'd echo remind you about this cause-and-effect again, after reading a local newspaper article that quoted Penn State placing the blame squarely on La Nina for our situation:

To explain this further, look at the graphic above. Orient yourself by assuming you're looking West. This means that Raleigh, NC is at your left and State College, PA is in the middle. Now imagine this happening along the northwestern edge of a ridge of high pressure sitting over the Southeast and you can see what PSU (and Henry) is saying (hopefully, sorry I couldn't find a better 3-D graphic).