NOAA Updates their Outlook for May, 2022 – It is an improvement

May 1, 2022Posted inweather2 Comments

At the end of every month, NOAA updates their Early Outlook for the following month which in this case is May. They also issue a drought outlook for the following month. We are reporting on that tonight. The updated Outlook is quite different from the Early Outlook which NOAA now calls the Mid-Month Outlook. It is overall less warm and less dry than the Mid-Month Outlook.

We provide partial-month outlooks for the first 27 days of May which allows us to validate if the Monthly Outlook is consistent with the partial month forecasts and it is.  We also provide enough information for readers to understand any changes from the Mid-Month Outlook and we try to figure out why these changes were made.  Most of the changes are explained in the NOAA discussion which is included in the article. The NOAA discussion describes the changes but does not provide a lot of insight into the reasons for the changes other than a change in the wave pattern that they describe as more troughing in the western Northern Tier. The partial-month forecasts that we have provided show how NOAA thinks this will play out as the weather pattern changes during May.

There is also a short discussion of the ENSO condition and it is looking less likely that there will be a Three-peat of the La Nina but that a near La Nina may be the more likely situation for Fall and Winter. Those forecasts can change but it looks like a marginally better situation with the focus on the words marginally better.

NOAA Updates Their February 2022 Outlook

February 1, 2022Posted inweatherNo Comments

At the end of every month, NOAA updates their Early Outlook for the following month which in this case is February. They also issue a drought outlook for the following month. We are reporting on that tonight as well as some interesting information on the change in Western streamflow median levels in the new climatology versus the prior climatology. This tells us how the past three decades have changed from the prior three decades. It is in line with what should be expected and is very interesting. It suggests that on average the West is drying out but I think I also see a secondary trend where it may be getting drier to the south and wetter to the north.

NOAA Updates the Weather Outlook for January 2022

January 3, 2022Posted inweather1 Comment

Written by Sig Silber

Here are the latest weather and drought forecasts for January 2022.  Every month on the last day of the month NOAA updates the weather forecast for the following month – in this case, January of 2022.  Also included is the summary from a recent USDA report on Irrigation by Frank Ward who is a professor at New Mexico State University.