If you want to see what this winter will look like, look out your window.
This dreary, cloudy, rainy weather making life in metro Atlanta so miserable is nothing less than the harbinger of soggy days to come, said Channel 2 Action News Meteorologist Glenn Burns.
That’s because El Nino, a massive climate pattern dragging wet weather across the country, has apparently pulled into town.
Last month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued its winter forecast for the country, declaring that metro Atlanta will be facing more days that are gray soakers.
Recent flooding in South Carolina and Texas support the thinking that El Nino has arrived, said Will Lanxton, meteorologist for the Georgia Emergency Management Agency.
“When you have these patterns every few weeks, you start thinking it’s an El Nino pattern,” he said.
Every couple of years, El Nino forms when the Pacific Ocean warms up around the equator. The climate pattern carries moisture across California, Texas and the Gulf states to our doorstep.
For metro Atlanta and much of Georgia, the winter forecast calls for generally wetter and cooler days. Metro Atlanta is actually experiencing warmer than usual temperatures right now, but that is expected to change as winter arrives.
While it’s difficult to connect a few days of weather to a massive climate pattern such as El Nino, Ryan Willis, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Peachtree City, said he sees the signs.
“This kind of weather pattern, with fall heading into winter, is probably El-Nino related,” he said.
This type of weather brings other challenges, as well, as seen by Monday’s spate of flash flood warnings, rain-slicked roads and nasty commuter delays. The day brought scattered incidents of flooding and power losses, as well.
El Nino doesn’t necessarily mean a winter of more ice and snow, but forecasters said they can’t rule them out. El Nino may be a major driver of this winter’s weather, but it is not the only one. Currently, it’s too far out to predict any other climate patterns, said Mike Halpert, deputy director of NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.
Meanwhile, this depressing run of weather is expected to last the week.
“I don’t expect to see the sun until late Sunday,” Burns said.
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