Rain-weary North Alabamians shouldn’t expect relief until El Nino ends after winter 2010, said Chelly Amin, meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

The disturbance in the ocean-atmosphere system in the Tropical Pacific will continue to cause cold fronts and increase the potential for rain. El Nino sometimes causes an increase in severe weather, but no hard evidence links the disturbance to winter storms, Amin said.

Near 50 inches

From Jan. 1 through Wednesday, 49.99 inches of rain fell at Pryor Field Regional Airport near Decatur.

That’s more than fell at Pryor Field during the same Jan. 1-Oct. 7 period in any year since 2005.

Rain and saturated ground caused power outages Tuesday night and Wednesday.

Two trees uprooted Wednesday morning in Northwest Decatur, toppling power lines.

Decatur Utilities Communications Supervisor Miles Wright said an outage occurred at 7:15 a.m. and disrupted power to 215 residential customers near Second Street and Sixth Avenue.

Crews restored power by 11:30 a.m.

While the weather caused only one outage in Decatur, the rain prompted sanitary sewer overflows on Wimberly Drive Southwest, Wright said.

Joe Wheeler Electric Membership Corp. had 85 customers without power Tuesday night. The majority of those customers were in Lacey’s Spring. Some were south of Town Creek.

Wet records

September was the 15th wettest month on record for Huntsville and the wettest month without a tropical system for Muscle Shoals.

In September, 7.79 inches of rain fell at Pryor Field. The weather service doesn’t keep monthly rainfall averages for Decatur. The average rainfall for September at Huntsville International Airport is 4.33 inches.

Staff Writer Catherine Godbey contributed to this article.

Decatur’s wet year

Pryor Field Regional Airport received 49.99 inches of rain from Jan. 1 through Wednesday.

Pryor Field received the following rainfall totals from Jan. 1 through Oct. 7 from 2005 through 2008: