Today is the third Thursday of the month so right on schedule NOAA has issued what I describe as their Four-Season Outlook. The information released also includes the MId-Month Outlook for the single month of February plus the weather and drought outlook for the next three months. The NOAA Outlook extends through February – March – April 2024.
In this preview, we are just presenting the Mid-Month Outlook for February and the Outlook for the three-month period of February, March, and April 2023.
We will present our full article on the NOAA Outlook soon. But we want to study it first. For many, the first three months of the Outlook are of most interest.
| The current weather report is available now HERE. To return to this article hit the return arrow in the upper left-hand corner of your screen. |
First, let’s Take a Look at the Mid-Month Outlook for February.
Combination Mid-Month Outlook for January and the Three-Month Outlook
The top row is what is now so-called the Mid-Month Outlook for February which will be updated at the end of January. There is a temperature map and a precipitation map. The second row is a three-month outlook that includes February. I think the outlook maps are self-explanatory. What is important to remember is that they show deviations from the current definition of normal which is the period 1991 through 2020. So this is not a forecast of the absolute value of temperature or precipitation but the change from what is defined as normal or to use the technical term “climatology”.
| Notice that for temperature, the February and three-month outlooks are quite similar. It is somewhat the same situation for precipitation. |
