If you feel like it has been unusually wet this year... your right. At the Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport... 57.41 inches of rain has fallen for the year so far... as of midnight December 14. This is 9.60 inches above normal through yesterday... normal being 47.81 inches.
The wet pattern is expected to continue based on long-range forecasts. The El Nino weather pattern should bring an active southern US storm track that will continue to deliver periodic and fairly consistent rainfall events. This southerly track allows storms to tap into abundant warm moist Gulf of Mexico air... strenthtening the low pressure systems.
The South gets more than normal rainfall during El Niño years and less than normal rainfall during La Niña years when the colder waters in the eastern Pacific cause the Pacific storm track to shift north and miss us. During El Niño, not only does the storm track head right for us, it is even stronger than it is during the La Niña phase. Another effect of El Niño is cooler than normal winters in the South from about Texas eastward.
The long range forecast from NOAA follows this trend of an El Nino winter... with above normal rainfall and below normal temperatures continuing from now through February.
For more information on El Niño, including seasonal forecasts by region, visit: http://www.elnino.noaa.gov/.
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