Metro Atlanta and most of Georgia south of the mountains likely face another winter of drier, warmer weather, raising the possibility the state will find scant relief from an ongoing drought.
All is not lost, however.
While forecasters placed a solid bet Thursday on La Niña, a weather system that brings drier, warmer conditions than normal, it's still possible other climate factors could bring rain and -- remember January’s "Snowpocalypse" -- snow to Georgia.
The less predictable weather system known as the North Atlantic oscillation could still push wetter and colder weather our way if it shifts winter storm tracks and upper-level jet streams more over the Southeast.
Those shifts, however, are difficult to predict more than a couple weeks in advance. They also typically last only a few weeks.
"It's going to be more La Niña than not," state climatologist Bill Murphey said.
According to the annual winter outlook released Thursday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Georgia and much of the nation will feel the effects of La Niña for the second winter in a row. La Niña, which has its roots in below-average ocean temperature in parts of the Pacific Ocean, usually occurs once every 3 to 5 years. Back-to-back years are not unprecedented, however.
That's bad news for especially for the Southern Plains, where drought conditions have been worst. Texas, the drought's epicenter, experienced its driest year on record from October 2010 through September, said David Brown, NOAA's southern region climate services director.
NOAA also said the Pacific Northwest is likely to be colder and wetter than average from December through February.
In Georgia, one of the hottest and driest summers on record forced much of the state into extreme drought. Rain earlier this week slightly eased conditions particularly north of Atlanta. But concern remains for lake and reservoir levels as well as for frustrated farmers, who this summer saw crops stunted and withered by the lack of precipitation.
Murphey said it was too early to say how the early spring planting season will fare.
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