Members of the Buffalo Township Volunteer Fire Company used a UTV at the scene of a brush fire Wednesday, Feb. 15, on Hannahstown Road in Jefferson Township. There were 14 emergency services dispatches for fires in Butler County on Wednesday, with several of them being brush fires, according to a report from the Butler County Department of Emergency Services. Chris Dean, chief of Saxonburg Volunteer Fire Company, told the Eagle that the weather conditions that day were conducive for brush fires. Shane Potter/Butler Eagle

The U.S. has experienced many La Niña seasons over the years, but only a few times since 1900 has there been a La Niña season three years in a row.

Myranda Fullerton, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Pittsburgh, said this is the third time there has been three La Niña winters in a row, which has caused this winter to be unseasonably warm and dry.

“La Niña is simply a cooling of the equator in the Pacific,” Fullerton said Thursday, Feb. 16. “Usually it does mean milder conditions. We're about normal for rainfall now, a little below average. We're low on snow; since Dec. 1, we’re sitting at about 16.22 inches below average for snowfall.”