Meteorological Winter Is Here: New Winter Weather Predictions For GA

GEORGIA — Winter officially begins in less than three weeks in Georgia and the National Weather Service's updated predictions offer a glimpse of how the season will shape up.

Currently, temperatures are on the warmer side in Georgia hovering close to the 60s this week.

For December through February, temperatures in Georgia have equal chances of being normal, according to NWS's updated map released on Nov. 16.

Georgia has a 60-70 percent chance of having above-normal precipitation for the 2023-24 winter season, which can include snow, sleet or rain.

Forecasters believe the winter weather will really ramp up in February 2024.

"February can be an active and intense month," AccuWeather Lead Long-Range Meteorologist and veteran forecaster Paul Pastelok said.

A driving force behind what Georgia can expect this winter can be attributed to El Niño, a climate cycle that results in the unusual warming of equatorial Pacific Ocean waters. The United States hasn’t had an El Niño winter in four years.

El Niño conditions are already inevitable, according to a consensus of scientists, with sea temperatures in the Pacific several degrees warmer than usual. This warmer water impacts what weather is carried on the winds to the United States. It's now considered very likely that this will keep temperatures warmer across much of the eastern seaboard, and conditions will likely "squash any widespread and meaningful cold in Northern Eurasia and eastern North America for weeks and possibly even months to come," Judah Cohen, with the Atmospheric and Environmental Research, said last week.