PHOENIX — Rain, snow, and colder temperatures. It seems like every week for the past month, storm after storm has swept through the state. It's a welcome sight, but out of the ordinary in a La Niña winter.
Typically, La Niña's tend to push the storm track farther north in the winter, leaving Arizona high and dry. That hasn't been the case this year according to Paul Iñiguez with the National Weather Service in Phoenix.
"We do very much still have La Niña conditions in place, the waters along the equator in the Pacific, are cooler than usual. It is influencing but there are other things that happen to influence the storm track," he says.
Right now, an active jet stream from east Asia is allowing Pacific storms to move through areas like California and Arizona, bringing cooler and wetter conditions.
Although rare, wetter than average winters during La Niña's in Phoenix have happened before. The last one occurred in the winter of 2016-2017. It may happen again this winter, too.
"I'm sure we'll see additional storm systems move through for the rest of the winter, so the rest of January, and the rest of February," Iñiguez says.
