ATLANTA, Ga. — Georgians should get ready for a wet winter, and maybe a little snow. A Super El Nino is now official in the equatorial Pacific as of Thursday, and the pattern is expected to steer storm after storm across the state over the next three months.
Ocean temperatures averaged over August through October hit the 2-degree Celsius mark needed for Super El Nino status, after a July-through-September reading fell short. No El Nino on record has been stronger, and this one could keep building for a couple more months.
Rain is the most confident part of the forecast. A strengthened subtropical jet stream is expected to pull Pacific and Gulf moisture over Georgia, and the outlook from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center leans toward more rain than usual for the Southeast. That should ease or end drought by late January; last winter, each climate station across North and Central Georgia came up anywhere from 3 to over 7 inches below normal.
Too much rain is the flip side. During the last very strong El Nino, 8 to 12 inches of rain in late December 2015 pushed more than 70 of the 240-plus river gauges tracked by the National Weather Service into flood. People who live near creeks, rivers or other flood-prone ground are being urged to watch heavy-rain forecasts closely.
Snow is possible but hard to pin down. Every strong or very strong El Nino winter on record has brought at least some measurable snow to metro Atlanta, but the cold air needed to turn Gulf storms into winter storms usually cannot be predicted until a few days out. When moisture meets Arctic air, Georgia can also see ice storms that bring down tree limbs, glaze roads and knock out power for long stretches.
Temperatures are the wildcard. Extra clouds and rain usually keep the Southeast near or a bit below normal. The same active jet stream can also fuel severe storms and tornadoes from late January through March, as it did in 1998, when damaging tornadoes hit Gainesville and Dunwoody after the 1997-98 Super El Nino.
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