Southern California could see a wetter-than-average winter with slightly higher temperatures than normal, according to the National Weather Service.
From December through February, the first winter with El Niño conditions in four years is predicted bring more precipitation accompanied by warmer weather in areas including parts of the West, Southeast and Gulf Coast, according to a winter outlook issued by the NWS’s Climate Prediction Center last week.
El Niño is “an oceanographic phenomenon that normally means the high pressure system that’s off the California coast moves kind of north, out of the way of storms that are coming from the west,” National Weather Service Meteorologist John Dumas said Tuesday. “Now these storms have a little bit straighter path to come at us.”
That doesn’t guarantee major storms will lash the region this winter, Dumas said, but people should be prepared anyway, as a little more rain than usual is likely–and even one strong storm can cause flash flooding in urban areas, like Long Beach.
A map in the winter outlook shows Southern California with as much as a 40% chance of getting more than the normal amount of rain. But Dumas said two consecutive years with significantly wetter weather “would be very unusual for this area,” as last winter’s rains filled many of the state’s reservoirs to the brim.
There’s also a 30 to 40% probability the region will see higher than usual temperatures, but that doesn’t necessarily mean there will be scortching heat waves, Dumas said.
The Pacific Northwest and Alaska are much more likely to get hotter winter weather, and the area most likely to see more rain is the southeastern U.S., according to the outlook.
Dumas suggested predictions like the winter outlook should be kept in perspective, because there’s a finite amount of historical data for scientists to consider and “it certainly is not a high confidence forecast this many months out.”