SAN DIEGO — El Niño is expected to stick around and impact San Diego’s weather this winter after La Niña dominated the last few winters.
El Niño is known for causing wetter-than-normal conditions and we could see that this winter.
"El Niño the warm stage is well established, it's large, it's strong and covering most of the equator," said Alex Tardy, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service.
Forecasters expect El Niño to stick around through the spring. CBS 8 asked how it might impact the weather in San Diego.
"We don't know exactly where on the west coast it will be wetter than normal or stormier than normal or have excessive rain," he said
He says the latest forecast, just released last week, shows winter storms hitting northern and central California harder than southern California.
"Are we going to get five storms or 13 atmospheric rivers like we did last year? Last year was record wet even in San Diego. Palomar mountain had 70 inches of rain. The most ever," he said.
Many southern Californians remember the record-breaking rainfall.
"It was a lot there was a bunch of floods," said Frank Lopez, who lives in southern California.
He says he'd be happy to have another wet winter.
"It got us out of a drought so we could water our lawns and wash our cars. That was a benefit to have rain. We need rain," he said.
In the next few weeks climate experts expect more days of warm temperatures and notable rainfall come November.
The National Weather Service will have another forecast update around Thanksgiving that should better pin down what type of weather to expect this winter.
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