NOAA Updates their Four-Season Outlook on February 17, 2022

Introduction

Today is the third Thursday of the month so right on schedule NOAA has issued their Seasonal Outlook which extends slightly more than a year so I call it a four-season outlook. It also includes what NOAA calls their Early Outlook for the following month which is March and a drought Outlook for the next three months. The maps show where temperature and precipitation will deviate from normal as the existing La Nina weakens and the weather pattern reverts to normal as adjusted to take into account what NOAA calls decadal trends. I include the full NOAA Discussion which supports their predictions. There is no guarantee that the future will unfold exactly as projected by NOAA but having this information which represents both a near-term and fairly long-term Outlook can be very useful.