After a relatively cool January in Georgia, the recent shift towards above average temperatures is likely to stick around.
The odds favor warmer than average temperatures over the next three months for much of the state, according to new projections from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. South Georgia has a higher than average chance of being drier over the next three months, while rainfall in Atlanta and north Georgia should be closer to average.
Experts partly blame a La Niña pattern, which developed last year and has persisted into 2022.
La Niña is triggered by temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, which can influence weather patterns across the globe. La Niña generally brings drier, warmer conditions to the southern half of the United States and wetter weather in the northern half.
That could bring more severe weather to Georgia, according to Pam Knox, an agricultural climatologist at the University of Georgia.
“La Niña shifts storm tracks to the north, and so we tend to be in the flow of more warm, moist air that’s coming off the Gulf of Mexico,” Knox said. “That means our spring severe weather season could be more active than normal because we’re getting all that energy.”
The weather pattern is expected to taper off by late spring.
The heat that Georgia is expected to feel in the coming months is also in line with longer-term global warming trends.
After 2021 ranked as the sixth hottest year on record, 2022 is also off to a warm start. Last month was the sixth warmest January the planet experienced in 143 years of record keeping, according to NOAA data.
Already, NOAA says it is virtually certain that 2022 will finish as one of the 10 hottest years globally, and there is a 10% chance that it could supplant 2016 as the hottest year ever recorded.