Jim Weber's Blog

More information has come out in the past week or so indicating that la Niña has returned for this upcoming winter. We have been watching this here at FOX 13 very closely. La Niña is characterized by the cooling of equatorial Pacific waters which is the opposite of an El Niño. It appears that it will be a week one this winter, but it is a good indicator of the type of winter we could expect. When we have a La Niña we typically see the cold fronts stay further to the north as the jetstream does not make as much progress southward. For our area we typically see drier conditions and temperatures during the day run slightly above normal with cool nights. Our rainfall over the past year in many places was well below normal, so with the expectation of a drier winter due to La Niña could cause some serious concerns over the winter into next spring. Many states in the southeast including, Georgia and Alabama have seen extreme drought conditions this year so they too will be affected by the upcoming La Niña.