By Clint Thompson
An El Niño winter means cooler and wetter conditions in some areas across the Southeast region. That means the wettest conditions are slated for certain parts of Florida, Georgia and Alabama, according to Pam Knox, University of Georgia (UGA) Extension agricultural climatologist.
“Typically, the wettest conditions are in, and this is for a typical El Niño, so it varies, but typically, South Georgia, South Alabama and Northern Florida get the wettest. That tends to be where the jet stream parks,” Knox said. “The jet stream is what’s pushing all these storms through. Every storm that comes through drops rain, and it’s got cloudy conditions. We tend to get a lot of rain, a lot of cloudy days. Daytime temperatures are cooler, nighttime temperatures are not necessarily, because when it’s really cloudy, you don’t drop like you do when it’s clear out.”
Knox said the term “Super El Niño” is not technically correct. She said weather experts prefer to call this type of event an “Extra Stronger El Niño.”
“The thing about El Niños is every El Niño is different. When we say that we have an extra strong or super El Niño, we don’t really think that impacts are going to be more extreme. We just think we have a higher probability of getting a typical El Niño winter, which in the southeast means wetter and cooler,” Knox said. “So, we have more confidence in the forecast than usual. It doesn’t mean it’s going to be worse. It just means we have more confidence in the forecast.”
Gloomy Winter Expected?
That forecast means a lot of cooler, cloudy days this winter.
“It’s going to probably feel a lot more like my West Michigan winters, which were gloomy every winter,” Knox said. “People who have seasonal affective disorder and need sunshine are going to be a little, I think, a little bit lacking this winter.”
She added that the last strong El Niño was around 2015 or 2016.