El Niño Winter Forecast: Freight Risks Fleets Can’t Ignore

El Niño winter forecast for freight: warmer doesn’t mean safer for fleets. DTN’s Ben Hershey breaks down what carriers should actually watch this winter: major snow events still possible, wetter western mountain routes, and why AI-driven crash risk forecasting is becoming an operational tool instead of just another weather map. If you move freight, this is the planning window that matters. #FreightWeather #ElNino #TruckingSafety

The strongest El Niño pattern in years is underway, and fleets hauling freight across western mountain passes and the central U.S. should prepare for a wetter, more volatile winter season, according to DTN product manager of transportation and logistics Ben Hershey. DTN has also just launched WeatherHub, a weather intelligence platform that puts hyperlocal road-condition data and a patent-pending crash risk index directly in the hands of dispatchers and fleet operators.

The El Niño signal points to a warmer-than-average winter across much of the central United States, but Hershey cautioned against complacency. Significant snow events can still hit the northern, central, and southern plains, and below-freezing temperatures will still reach much of the South for at least short periods. The more acute risk for carriers is out west, where a substantially wetter winter could hammer mountain corridors — including high-volume passes in the Sierra Nevada and Rockies — with repeated waves of heavy precipitation.

“We’re looking at a potential of a much wetter winter season, which could challenge those operators trying to travel those mountain passes,” Hershey said. “It is going to put a challenge for those operators that have to travel up and over those mountain ranges moving freight from the western part of the United States into the central and eastern parts.”

“We are trying to apply it to their operations — giving them a potential risk of a crash in that situation heightens their attention to the weather conditions,” Hershey said, describing the crash risk index logic.

The crash risk index, which DTN has filed as a patent-pending solution, fuses historical crash records — including precise location, time, and concurrent weather conditions — with real-time traffic data and forecasted weather to generate a forward-looking crash probability along a given route. The tool produces hyperlocal forecasts down to a couple of miles in resolution and looks out to a 72-hour window, a range Hershey said was calibrated specifically to how fleet operators actually make route-planning decisions. Weather data from DTN extends several days further, but the 72-hour horizon covers the detailed operational window carriers told the company they rely on most.

AI is central to making the system practical. Hershey noted that processing the same combination of weather and traffic data would have taken hours to run a decade ago, making it nearly useless for real-time decisions. “Now we’re able to do this in minutes,” he said, adding that DTN continues to layer AI tools on top of its core traditional meteorological models rather than replacing proven science with AI alone.

WeatherHub, launched within the last few months, lets users scroll through road-network conditions hour by hour — including air temperature, road-surface temperature, and road conditions — across the U.S. Dispatchers can enter an origin and destination and see projected conditions along that specific route timed to when their driver is expected to be there, along with alternate routing options. For carriers and third-party logistics providers that prefer not to add another standalone application, DTN also offers the crash risk index and full weather dataset via API for integration into existing platforms. Hershey pointed to tangible financial stakes beyond safety: fleets with documented weather data can use it to contest late-delivery penalties from shippers, a meaningful lever given ongoing economic and fuel-cost pressures across the industry.

• DTN’s patent-pending crash risk index blends historical crash records, traffic, and weather forecasts to project route hazards up to 72 hours out at hyperlocal resolution of a few miles.
• El Niño points to a warmer central U.S. winter on average, but carriers face a potentially much wetter season across western mountain corridors, threatening key freight passes.
• DTN’s newly launched WeatherHub platform delivers hour-by-hour road-condition data and route-specific forecasts, with full API access for integration into third-party logistics systems.

This Summary is generated thanks to a transcription of the interview, for the full interview please enjoy the video above.