What Does the Current El Nino Mean for Us?

How Might the Currently Developing El Nino Affect Central Alabama?

With a developing strong El Nino event currently underway, you might be wondering what this could mean for Central Alabama as we head into the fall and winter season. Let’s take a look and see what the upcoming cool season might hold for us when we look at some years with similar type El Nino events.

Since 1950, there have been six similarly strong El Nino events. These occurred in 1957, 1965, 1972, 1982, 1991 and 1997. Let’s see what happened in those years.

If we take a composite of those years for October, what we find is that Octobers tended to be drier than normal. Looking at the graphic below, you can see that Central Alabama tended to have rainfall on the order of one-half to one inch below normal for the month.

Next, let’s see how Novembers shaped up in general. Looking at the composite graphic for November, we see that precipitation across Central Alabama begins to show some increase with amounts generally near to slightly above normal, especially in our southern counties.

Finally, as we move into December for these years, we see that rainfall increases across Central Alabama, with amounts generally averaging up to over an inch above normal.

So, based on previous years having strong El Nino events, it appears that what might begin as a somewhat dry fall season for Central Alabama in October could gradually transition to a wetter weather pattern as we move into November, and especially December. Of course, there are other factors that could come into play, such as if a tropical cyclone were to affect portions of the area in October. It will be interesting to watch weather patterns as we move through the fall and see how this year compares to other previous years that experienced the strong El Ninos.