Yesterday I posted a story about how quickly the next El Nino seems to be coming on. It looks from computer predictions that it is likely to be a moderate to strong one, so its impacts are more predictable than in a weak El Nino. Still, every one is unique and the impacts across the Southeast also vary, with the strongest impacts likely to be in southern AL and GA and Florida. Your results may vary.
Kirk Mellish, retired Atlanta broadcast meteorologist, provided his analysis this week in his blog at https://medium.com/@melhuish/el-nino-watch-issued-2d7ad619c119.
David Zierden, the Florida State Climatologist, noted that with a strong El Nino, the southern tier of states could see a fairly wet fall as the jet stream pushes storms across the region. This would suggest that farmers that need dry conditions in fall may want to plant quicker-maturing varieties this year so that they can complete their harvest before wet conditions get established. He also said that producers should be especially mindful of forecasts in fall so that they can take advantage of dry periods between rain events.
You can compare the temperature and precipitation variations between week and strong El Ninos at https://www.weather.gov/mhx/ensoninoanomalies. The map below shows the anomalies expected in November through January in a moderate or strong El Nino.
