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North American Drought Briefingfor Jan 2012

and Nov 2011-Jan2012

Climate Prediction Center/NCEP/NOAA

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/Drought

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Current Partners

CPC: Kingtse Mo, LiChuan Chen, Muthuvel Chelliah, Wesley Ebisuzaki, Huug van den Dool

EMC: NLDAS Team: Youlong Xia, Jesse Meng, Helin Wei, Michael Ek

NASA/GSFC: Randy Koster, Greg Walker

Princeton Univ.: Eric Wood, Justin Scheffield

Univ. of Washington: Dennis Lettenmaier, S. Shukla,

Web Masters: Joe Harrison

RFCs: James noel, Kevin Werner, Andy Wood, Jeff Dobur, John Feldt

Project Funded by NOAA MAPP, TRACS & NASA

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P anomalies over the United States

High lights:

Jan 2012

• Rainfall over Texas and the Pacific Northwest improved drought

•Dry over California and Arizona

• Dryness continues over the Southeast and the Atlantic coast

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SPI•Drought over Texas improved . It no longer shows up on the SPI3 map

•For short term SPI3, dryness improved over the Pacific Northwest

• Drought is developing over the region from California to Colorado;

•Drought continues over Minnesota , Wisconsin and Southeast

D3 D2 D1

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Streamflow percentile (USGS)

Improvements :Southern Plains and the Pacific Northwest

Drought; Northern California, Southeast

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RUNOFF 3-mo

NCEP/EMC/NLDASSRI3

U Washington

Runoff SRI3 from the UW and the NCEP agree SRI3 shows dryness over the West Coast, Southeast and Minnesota Wisconsin. Drought over the Southern Plains improved

EMC/NCEP

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Multi model SM information

EMC

U Washington

SM % agrees with the runoff Drought over the Southern PlainsImproved. Dryness only remains over western Texas and southern tip of Texas Dryness continues over California, Minnesota , Wisconsin and Southeast

EMC/NCEP

EMC/NCEP

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SM anomaly (mm) for Jan 2012

Runoff anomaly (mm/day) for Jan 2012

Keetch-Byram Drouught index

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Drought monitor

Dry conditions over the Texas, Oklahoma New Mexico improved

Drought continues over Minnesota, Wisconsin and the Southeast

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SWE from multi model UW NRCS Basin Averaged Snow Water Content (%)

Snow % is below normal from California, Nevada to Colorado

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Mean Temperature anomalies : warm over the CONUS

Jan

SSTA

• La Nina is slightly weaker, but SSTAs the central Pacific are still less than -1.5C•Positive SSTAs in the North Pacific•Negative SSTAs in the Tropical South Atlantic

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OLRA

Positive OLRAS (suppressed convection) in the centralPacific and enhanced convection over the western Pacific consistent with cold ENSO

The streamfunction anomaly shows positive anomalies over California (dry) and negative anomalies over the PNW (wet)

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Outgoing Longwave Radiation (OLR) Anomalies

Time

Mar

Jun

Ensemble mean GFS

Positive OLRA associated with ENSO dominates over the central Pacific.Regular MJO since Oct 2011.

SSTA forecasts

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Cold ENSO is weakening quickly Positive SSTAs are still located over the Northern Pacific,

CFSV2 CFSv1

IRI-CPCProbability

based ENSO forecasts

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• Winter- Cold ENSO • MAM-- cold and

neutral ENSO have about equal chance to occur

• After May –Neutral conditions

http://iri.columbia.edu/climate/ENSO/currentinfo

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T and P fcsts for FMA 2012

Pr

precipTemp

Cold ENSO impact

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SPI forecasts based on CFSv2 (IC s Feb 3,4 2012

• Drought over Texas, Minn, Wisconsin and the PNW will continue to improve.• Some improvement over the Southeast

FCST UW IC s 20120204

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SM 1mo

SM 2mo

SM 3 mo

RO 1mo

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EMC/Princeton systemIcs 20120202

SM month 1

SM month 2SM month 3

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seasonalDrought outlook

Need to updateThis month

Last month

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SPI forecasts based on CFSv2ICs Dec 3 and 4

VerificationJan 2012

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Jan

U Washington conditional EN

SM fcst made in Jan 2012

verification

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Conclusions

Ocean conditions :• La Nina is weakening but SSTAs less than -1.5C

still remain over the tropical Pacific Current conditions:Dry: • Rainfall brought relieve to the Southern Plains

and the Pacific Northwest• Drought continues over Minnesota and Wisconsin • Drought developing from California to ColoradoWet Ohio Valley, Northeast

Prediction

La Nina•Cold ENSO is weakening and turning to Neutral conditions by springDrought•Drought over the Southern Plains , the Pacific Northwest continues to weaken.•Minnesota, Wisconsin and Southeast –continue for two months and then weakening•

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