(BIVN) – The National Weather Service in Honolulu has issued its wet season rainfall outlook for the State of Hawaiʻi, and says current models favor above average rainfall during that time.

The wet season runs from October 2019 through April 2020.

The El Niño weather pattern, or rather the lack of an El Niño, is part of the equation. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center says current ENSO-neutral conditions are likely to continue through spring 2020. In the last 30 years, 8 out of the top 10 rainiest wet seasons have had ENSO-neutral conditions, forecasters say.

The projected pattern “suggests possibility of cutoff low pressure systems that can produce intense rainfall, especially when combined with expected above average sea surface temperatures,” the wet season outlook states.

Looking back at the dry season, which runs from May through September, many locations across the state had above average rainfall. The dry season began early due to the effects of El Niño at the start of 2019. All four counties were under moderate to severe drought in early May. Some portions of the Big Island even reached extreme drought levels.

Still, this past dry season was the 7th wettest dry season in the last 30 years. The wettest dry season in the last three decades was in 2015.

The existing drought is expected to be eliminated by the end of the wet season, forecasters say.