So When Will We 'Feel' This Coming El Niño?

We've been talking a lot about El Niño in the CBS11 weather department.  It's showing good signs of returning this summer/fall.

El Niño is the warming of the central and eastern tropical Pacific Oceans that alter the jet stream flow across the United States and helps bring wetter-than-normal weather to Texas.

The last time we had an El Niño was 2009-2010.  It wasn't a particularly strong El Niño, but it did bring above-normal rainfall to North Texas.  When that El Niño went away, the dry weather came back and we've been battling drought ever since.

But when we examine 2009, we see the first 2/3 of the year was dry.  The wet weather didn't come on strong until September.

So far, this is the 5th driest start to a year on record at DFW...the driest start to any year since 1972.

The coming El Niño will make things wetter, but not until the fall most likely.  The wild card will be a tropical storm or hurricane if it were to come up into Texas this summer.

See you on CBS11 News at 4pm today!

~Jeff J.