El Nino = Cooler, Wetter Weather for SCTX in January and February

With El Nino now in full swing, we're looking for generally cooler and wetter than normal weather conditions across southcentral Texas as we move into January and February.

The image below shows the latest "Climate Forecast Model" prediction of temperature anomaly (departure from normal) for North America for the month of January (and the map looks much the same heading into February):

CFS January Temperature Departure from Normal (Forecast)

Note that much of southcentral Texas is in the lighter blue shadings, which indicates colder than normal conditions are likely this month.  We agree with this general forecast based on present and expected conditions.

In case you're keeping track - the average high and low temperatures in Austin in January are 60° and 40° F, respectively and are 65° and 45° F, respectively, in February.

The precipitation outlook from the same model also places much of Texas, including our local area, in the "above normal" range for January (and the map looks much the same heading into February):

CFS January Precipitation Departure from Normal (Forecast)

FWIW, the normal rainfall total for Austin in January is 1.89 inches.  The normal rainfall in February is 2.01 inches.

A popular question recently has been "will we see more bad winter weather days in January and February this year due to El Nino".  The short answer is:  not necessarily...

Just because temperatures will likely average "below normal" during the period doesn't necessarily mean that they'll be cold enough to support more widespread freezing precipitation vs. what we'd normally see in late winter.

The safe bet at this point is that this year we're likely to see at least the "normal" number of potentially icy weather days in January and February, and if conditions come together just right, we may see a bit more activity vs. normal as we head into the latter part of this winter.

Stay tuned here to SCTX Aware and we'll keep you advised on the latest winter weather conditions and forecasts for the local area.