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Our automated weather channel is on the air around the clock: the radar, the temperatures, the week ahead — and when a warning hits the Valley, it stays with the storm.
Nothing in the Gulf Tonight, but a Strong El Nino Points to a Wet Winter
Is anything in the Gulf right now and what will El Nino do to Georgia and Alabama this winter?
The Hurricane Center is watching nothing in the Gulf tonight, but a strong El Nino has the Climate Prediction Center leaning toward a wetter than normal October through December across west Georgia and east Alabama.
Photo: Никита Ходяков / Pexels
Stand on a dock at Lake Eufaula this evening and the sky over the water is about as quiet as late September gets. The National Hurricane Center's Atlantic outlook has two items on it, and neither one is anywhere near us. Tropical Depression Fay is well west-southwest of the Azores. A trough of low pressure several hundred miles east-northeast of Bermuda is moving quickly northeastward with disorganized showers and thunderstorms, and it could become a tropical depression in the next couple of days when it turns eastward and slows over the central Atlantic. The Gulf has nothing on it.
That matters for how you read the end of this week. The rain chances returning to Columbus, Phenix City and LaGrange on Friday and Saturday have nothing to do with the tropics. They come from the ridge of high pressure overhead breaking down, which lets the wind swing around to the south and pull moisture back up from the Gulf. Peachtree City forecasters put afternoon thunderstorm chances between 25 and 35 percent on Friday, with more widespread storms likely over the weekend that follows. They also flagged Sunday as the day to watch, and they were honest about why they are not certain: one model builds plenty of instability and enough change in wind with height to organize storms, while another keeps most of that wind shear off to the north. Whether the storms are simply heavy or turn gusty depends on which of those is closer to right.
The longer view is the part worth filing away. The Pacific is in a strong El Nino, with an index of 1.8. Warm water along the equator there strengthens the subtropical jet stream straight across the southern United States, and in the record that has usually meant a wetter and often cooler cold season along the Gulf South, with more storm systems crossing the region and a raised risk of severe weather in the Gulf states. The Climate Prediction Center leans the same direction for October through December, giving this part of Georgia and Alabama a 40 percent chance of above-normal precipitation and a 33 percent chance of above-normal temperatures, with January through March leaning closer to normal.
None of that is a forecast of any one storm for Tuskegee, Opelika, Cuthbert or Lumpkin. What it is, practically, is a reason to get the boring things done now while the afternoons are dry: check that you have a way to hear a warning at two in the morning that does not depend on your phone being off silent, and clear the gutters and ditches before the pattern turns.
The water is not starting from a deficit, either. Columbus has picked up 40.30 inches of rain since January 1, about three and a third inches ahead of the 36.93 normal for this date, and over the past week the Chattahoochee River in Columbus has averaged about 3,300 cubic feet per second against a late-September normal near 2,840. The one place running short is Upatoi Creek near Columbus, at roughly three-quarters of its normal flow. That is the ground this fall's rain will land on.
Right now in Columbus, Georgia
69°Temperature
47°Dew point
46%Humidity
5 mphWind — northwest
29.87"Pressure
The next seven days
Day
High
Low
Rain
Conditions
TONIGHT
—
57°
1%
Mostly Clear
MON
84°
57°
1%
Sunny
TUE
87°
62°
0%
Sunny
WED
91°
68°
1%
Sunny
THU
91°
70°
14%
Sunny
FRI
88°
71°
43%
Chance Rain Showers
SAT
85°
70°
54%
Chance Rain Showers
Written by the CNAW 2 weather desk from CNAW 2 weather desk data. Last updated September 27, 2026 at 10:26 PM Eastern. Covering Columbus and Phenix City, Auburn–Opelika, LaGrange, Eufaula and the rest of the 19-county CNAW viewing area.
