Watkinsville, GA |
The past twelve months of weather in Georgia can no doubt be described as extreme — too dry, then too wet, then not enough of anything. And with tropical activity virtually absent this season, forecasters are pointing to a major shift on the horizon: a powerful El Niño that could dramatically reshape conditions heading into winter and the 2027 growing season.
“Last spring we were in a pretty bad drought, and we did get quite a bit of rain right at the beginning of summer that alleviated a lot of the short-term drought. But rainfall has been really spotty — we’re not getting any tropical activity this year, partly because of the El Niño,” said Pam Knox, Agricultural Climatologist with the University of Georgia. “The only rain we’re really getting is pop-up thunderstorm rain where it hits one field and doesn’t even hit the one right next to it. You can have drought and floods in the same county.”
Forecasters have been using the phrase “super El Niño” to describe what’s developing — but Knox says that term needs some unpacking before producers start planning around it.
“There’s no official term as a ‘super El Niño.’ El Niño is basically rated by how hot temperatures in the eastern Pacific Ocean get. Depending on how strong they get, you can have a weak, moderate, or strong El Niño,” Knox said. “Right now I think we’re in a strong El Niño, and there’s about a seventy-five percent chance we’re going to get into an extra-strong one. When we have an El Niño in the winter — usually strongest right around Christmas — we’re more likely in Georgia to see wetter and cooler conditions than normal.”
Knox says the strongest El Niño effects are typically felt in southern Georgia, but in a year this powerful, the influence could stretch across the entire state. The timing, however, is still uncertain.
“El Niño takes a while to build up — it’s a global weather pattern, so things don’t happen immediately. But when it really gets organized and kicks in, we could see a pretty rapid transition to fairly wet and cool conditions,” Knox said. “Usually you might say November or December, but because it’s so strong this time, we think it might actually kick in a little bit early.”
For Georgia’s farmers, a cooler and wetter winter carries a significant upside: the chance to rebuild soil moisture depleted by the drought conditions that complicated much of the 2026 growing season.
“One of the nice things about El Niño — if you can call it a nice thing — is that usually we get a lot of recharge of soil moisture over the winter months, and we go into the next growing season with plenty of moisture,” Knox said. “Last year we had a La Niña — it was very dry for most of the winter, and when we got into spring, a lot of areas were too dry to plant. I don’t think that’s going to be a problem this year. More likely, the fields are going to be so wet that it might be hard to get into some of the low-lying ones that are already kind of damp.”
For Georgia producers who spent much of 2026 chasing rainfall, a wet winter may feel like welcome relief — though as Knox makes clear, the weather always has one more surprise waiting just around the corner.