Strong El Niño likely means more rain for DFW

What weather watchers have predicted for months has come true.

The National Weather Service said again on Monday that this year’s El Niño is tied for the strongest on record since 1950.

With heavy rains in November and Dallas-Fort Worth’s deadliest tornado outbreak ever in December, none of this should come as a surprise. El Niño, which occurs when ocean temperatures climb above normal off the Pacific coast of South America, typically brings the southern half of the U.S. wetter than normal winters.

And that likely means more wet weather is on the way this winter with long-range outlooks predicting wetter than normal conditions for the next few months.

That’s coming after the wettest year on record, with 62.61 inches.

“I think, in this case, the past is also a good example for the future,” said State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon. “The impact tends to persist through the winter and into spring.”

In North Texas, more rain is in the forecast Tuesday night through Thursday but it won’t be a deluge. And there could be more rainfall later this month — just in time for the Fort Worth Stock Show, which runs Jan. 15 through Feb. 6.

“We do have some chances for rain this week and there are a couple of systems out to the northwest,” said Lamont Bain, meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Fort Worth office. “We could see a shift in the pattern later this month that could bring us heavier rainfall. We’ll just have to wait and see where those systems go.”

By summer, this El Niño should fade away.

Nielsen-Gammon said there’s about a 50 percent chance that El Niño’s sister phenomena, La Niña, which normally brings drier weather to Texas, will form next winter.

“If it was five years ago, I would say it was almost certain that would happen,” Nielsen-Gammon said.

But another long-term weather pattern, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, sometimes called a long-term El Niño, has been in a warm phase for nearly a year and a half.

If it stays in that position, it could mean the end of the long-term pattern of hotter, drier weather for Texas.

But Nielsen-Gammon said he won’t really believe it until the long-term El Nino stays in that warm phase for five years.

Still, the state climatologist views next year as crucial.

“I think it’s going to go a long way in telling us where we’re headed,” Nielsen-Gammon said.

This story was originally published January 4, 2016 at 6:29 PM with the headline "Strong El Niño likely means more rain for DFW."