Here comes the rain again.
Get used to it. Our continuing wet fall should be followed by a wetter-than-average winter, courtesy of the warm waters of the Pacific Ocean, which continue to be in full-bore El Niño mode.
If historical patterns hold, our winter rain will be twice normal.
Sea-surface temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific remain more than 3 degrees Fahrenheit above normal and should produce a winter-weather pattern that will carry storms west-to-east across the southern tier of states.
Southern California and Southern Arizona have rainfall totals dramatically above normal in El Niño years.
Our recent string of hot, dry days ends today as a second October storm moves through Southern Arizona.
The possibility of thunderstorms with high winds, heavy rain and hail begins this afternoon and remains in the forecast through Monday, said meteorologist Ken Drozd of the National Weather Service in Tucson.
It will dry out after that, but more October and November precipitation is predicted by the National Climate Prediction Center, Drozd said.
Then comes winter. Drozd recently compiled data that show the potential for double our normal rainfall in the November through March period.
Using data from six previous “strong” El Niño events, Drozd found that rainfall in Tucson in those years averaged 6.25 inches, 80 percent higher than the normal 3.46 inches.
In some areas of Southern Arizona, those totals more than doubled.
Drozd noted that the most recent strong El Niño, in 1997-98, produced multiple snowfalls of a foot or more atop Mount Lemmon, in addition to heavy valley rain.
The storms this week are courtesy of the same low-pressure system that brought thunderstorms to the region last week. Part of that low was “cut off” and meandered to the southwest, said Weather Service meteorologist Alan Hickford.
“It came back up, and now it’s going to hit us again,” he said.
