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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.
Quiet Tropics Into Next Week, but El Niño Points to a Wet Winter Here
Are any tropical storms expected to form in the Gulf before hurricane season ends?
The National Hurricane Center's Wednesday morning outlook says no tropical cyclone formation is expected in the Atlantic, Caribbean or Gulf for the next seven days, so no tropical rain is headed toward Columbus, Eufaula or the rest of the Chattahoochee Valley in that window.
Photo: Ginka Thompson / Pexels
Stand on a dock at Lake Eufaula in the middle of November and the Gulf feels a long way off, which it is. But the Chattahoochee Valley has always gotten a share of its late-season rain from storms that came ashore on the coast and fell apart over us, and this year that faucet is shut. In the outlook issued at 7 AM Wednesday, the National Hurricane Center in Miami wrote one line about the North Atlantic, the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf: tropical cyclone formation is not expected during the next seven days. That carries past the middle of the month. Hurricane season ends November 30.
That matters here more than it sounds, because the rivers have been running light. Over the seven days ending November 10, the Chattahoochee River in Columbus averaged 1,991 cubic feet per second against a normal of 3,290 for these same dates, about 61 percent of normal. The Chattahoochee River at West Point averaged 1,733, roughly 52 percent of its normal. Below Lake Eufaula, near Columbia, Alabama, the river averaged 2,163, about half of normal. Only Upatoi Creek near Columbus, which has no dam upstream to meter it out, came close, at 82 percent.
Those are week-long averages on purpose. The dams at West Point, Bartletts Ferry on Lake Harding and Walter F. George release water in pulses to make electricity, so a single reading at the 14th Street gauge can swing from a third of normal to double within a day. The week average is the honest number.
Here is the part worth repeating at dinner. Columbus has had 43.71 inches of rain since January 1, against a normal of 41.24 by this date, so the year as a whole is ahead. Since September 1 it has had 5.77 inches against a normal of 7.28. The year is wet and the autumn is not, and the creeks and rivers from Hamilton down through Cuthbert and Lumpkin answer to the autumn.
So where does the recharge come from? Look at the Pacific. The tropical Pacific is in a very strong El Niño, with an index of 2.46. Warm water out 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. The Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of above-normal precipitation for November through January at 60 percent for this part of the country, with temperatures near normal.
There is a second half to that pattern, and it is the half to take seriously from Tuskegee and Opelika to LaGrange and Phenix City. More storm systems crossing the Gulf South in winter also means a raised risk of severe weather in the Gulf states during the cold months, often at hours when people are asleep. If the only thing you do with this story is make sure you have a way to be woken up by a warning, that is enough.
For now, the coast is quiet and the water flowing past the RiverWalk is thinner than the calendar says it should be. The refill, when it comes, will arrive on a winter front out of the west rather than on anything with a name.
Right now in Columbus, Georgia
49°Temperature
46°Dew point
91%Humidity
3 mphWind — southwest
30.06"Pressure
The next seven days
Day
High
Low
Rain
Conditions
TODAY
73°
54°
4%
Partly Sunny
THU
71°
40°
0%
Sunny
FRI
60°
35°
0%
Sunny
SAT
59°
33°
0%
Sunny
SUN
61°
38°
2%
Sunny
MON
57°
39°
27%
Partly Sunny then Slight Chance Rain Showers
TUE
60°
39°
20%
Slight Chance Rain Showers
Written by the CNAW2 weather desk from CNAW2 weather desk data. Last updated November 11, 2026 at 8:42 AM Eastern. Covering Columbus and Phenix City, Auburn–Opelika, LaGrange, Eufaula and the rest of the 19-county CNAW viewing area.
