El Niño and rain are on their way

But nothing is certain.

“I play a lot of poker,” said Brent McRoberts, assistant state climatologist at Texas State University in San Marcos. “You could have two pocket aces and still lose on the flop.”

If losing means more drought, the odds for San Antonio don't look good. Despite the weekend's forecast of scattered thunderstorms and up to 3 inches of rain, local creeks and springs not directly in their path are going to stay shallow or dry.

On Thursday, national and local weather experts gathered at the San Antonio Water System's customer service building to discuss the past 24 months of little to no rain and what to expect for fall and winter.

In sum, the coming months should be good for lawns but the Edwards Aquifer most likely won't return to healthy levels anytime soon, said Mike Halpert deputy director of the Climate Prediction Center in Washington.

As the Pacific Ocean's equatorial surface off South America switches from the cooler La Niña system to the warmer El Niño, more moisture is put into the air. That air then is pushed by the jet stream across Texas, Halpert said.

“It sets up what we call a ‘background flow,'” he said.

That moist air means a 30 percent to 40 percent chance of this winter being above average for rainfall and slightly below average for temperature.

“It's not a slam dunk for increase, but it's some,” Halpert said.