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VALDOSTA — South Georgia can expect to dry out and enter the first stages of a drought this winter, according to weather experts.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration held a conference call for reporters Thursday to talk about its long-range winter forecast for the U.S. NOAA is the parent organization for the National Weather Service.

Overall, the continental U.S. is heading for its most widespread drought since September 2013, said Mike Halpert, deputy director of NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.

The drought situation is expected to worsen across the wildfire-ravaged west, and will also move into the northeast and the South Georgia / North Florida region, he said.

Much of the problem is being attributed to La Nina, a periodic weather pattern in the Pacific Ocean that blows warm moisture westward, causing cooler water to rise to the surface near the coast of South America.

La Nina often causes drier-than-normal conditions in parts of the U.S., NOAA says. La Nina formed in August and is expected to stretch through the winter months, Halpert said.

Much of the South is expected to be spared drought conditions in the next few months because of a recent surplus of moisture, due largely to tropical storm systems that have dumped rain, said Dave Miskus, a meteorologist for the Climate Prediction Center.

However, there are some “pockets” of the South where rainfall has been either right at the normal annual average or just below, leaving those spots vulnerable to “D1 conditions,” he said.

South Georgia and North Florida, including Valdosta, form one of those pockets. NOAA uses a five-point scale to measure droughts, and D1 is the “moderate” category, with high fire risks, low stream and reservoir levels and possible damage to crops.

Valdosta’s annual rainfall to date is almost right at normal, said Alan Reppert, senior meteorologist for the private forecasting firm AccuWeather.

“The average (for Valdosta) is 43.33 inches,” he said. “So far this year, the city’s had 44.79 inches of rain.”

He said that while Lowndes County usually gets around 12 inches of rain from December to February, he expects less than that this year.

“We’re not looking at a major lack of rainfall, though,” Reppert said.

Temperatures will also run three-four degrees above normal, he said.

Terry Richards is senior reporter at The Valdosta Daily Times.