Rain Chances Finally Improve After a Dry Start to May

May 18, 2020

By Pam Knox

The forecast for rain on Saturday did not look too hopeful for rain in Georgia, but the latest forecast released today looks a lot more favorable for at least an inch of rain this week. We won’t see much if anything from Tropical Storm Arthur, which will be off to our east, but a complex system of fronts and a cut-off low are expected to bring an inch to central Georgia and potentially several inches to the northeast mountains in the next week. The driest period is likely to be next weekend, with showers on and off this week. On Monday there is a slight chance of severe weather, especially in the northeast part of Georgia, but it is not expected to be a big outbreak if anything materializes. Keep an eye out just in case. The rain is sorely needed as we have had almost no rain in the first half of May, although temperatures have been quite cool, and producers have been worried about going into a flash drought. Hopefully the rain this week will give everyone some hope of a return to a wetter pattern.

Source : uga.edu

Video: Spring 2026 weather outlook for Wisconsin; What an early-arriving El Niño could mean

Northeast Wisconsin is a small corner of the world, but our weather is still affected by what happens across the globe.

That includes in the equatorial Pacific, where changes between El Niño and La Niña play a role in the weather here -- and boy, have there been some abrupt changes as of late.

El Niño and La Niña are the two phases of what is collectively known as the El Niño Southern Oscillation, or ENSO for short. These are the swings back and forth from unusually warm to unusually cold sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean along the equator.

Since this past September, we have been in a weak La Niña, which means water temperatures near the Eastern Pacific equator have been cooler than usual. That's where we're at right now.

Even last fall, the long-term outlook suggested a return to neutral conditions by spring and potentially El Niño conditions by summer.

But there are some signs this may be happening faster than usual, which could accelerate the onset of El Niño.

Over the last few weeks, unusually strong bursts of westerly winds farther west in the Pacific -- where sea surface temperatures are warmer than average -- have been observed. There is a chance that this could accelerate the warming of those eastern Pacific waters and potentially push us into El Niño sooner than usual.

If we do enter El Nino by spring -- which we'll define as the period of March, April and May -- there are some long-term correlations with our weather here in Northeast Wisconsin.

Looking at a map of anomalously warm weather, most of the upper Great Lakes doesn't show a strong correlation, but in general, the northern tiers of the United States do tend to lean to that direction.

The stronger correlation is with precipitation. El Niño conditions in spring have historically come with a higher risk of very dry weather over that time frame, so this will definitely be a transition we'll have to watch closely as we move out of winter.