El Niño offers Maryland drought relief, not a snow guarantee
WJZ's fast-starting weather report points toward a mild, wet winter while leaving the snowfall question open.
WJZ
Story of Why this story? The video opened at a pace of 52,219 views a day, 59 times a normal first day on this channel (880).
How will El Nino in the Pacific impact Maryland's winter?
Snow is the question Greg Padgett cannot settle. Relief from Maryland's drought is the prospect he puts more confidence in.
The WJZ meteorologist makes that distinction in "How will El Nino in the Pacific impact Maryland's winter?", a short weather report that drew about 21,000 views in six hours. The station's Shorts usually receive fewer than a thousand views across their entire first day.
Padgett describes signs of a milder, wetter winter, with NOAA scientist Matthew Rosencrans explaining how storm tracks can carry Pacific and Gulf moisture into the Mid-Atlantic. For a state dealing with drought, that moisture matters beyond the possibility of a snow day.
The report also shows historical maps of above-average snowfall during moderate-to-strong El Niño winters. But those past patterns are not a promise about this winter's totals. "I don't have that crystal ball about the snow exactly..." Padgett says.
His more definite outlook concerns rain and replenishment: he relays Maryland's state climatologist's expectation that mild, wet conditions could end the state's drought within the next few months.
Published on Trari
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- Channel
- WJZ
- Subscribers
- 178,000 ▲ 1,000 this week
- Channel views, last 7 days
- 887,314
- Channel views, pace per day
- 134,149 (on a normal day: 124,249)
- Video published
- October 15, 2026
- Video views so far
- 20,722 (less than a day online)
- Video views, pace per day
- 52,219
The numbers
The winter explainer has already drawn far more views than a typical WJZ Short receives on its first day.
💡 Test your knowledge
What does NOAA stand for?
NOAA is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. agency whose scientist Matthew Rosencrans appears in the report.