NOAA Updates Its Seasonal Outlook on December 21, 2023 – Sudden Stratospheric Warming (SSW) Watch

December 22, 2023Posted inweatherNo Comments

On the third Thursday of the month right on schedule NOAA issued their updated Seasonal Outlook which I describe as their Four-Season Outlook because it extends a bit more than one year into the future. The information released also included the Mid-Month Outlook for the following month plus the weather and drought outlook for the next three months.  I present the information issued by NOAA and try to add context to it. It is quite a challenge for NOAA to address the subsequent month, the subsequent three-month period as well as the twelve successive three-month periods for a year or a bit more.

First, Let’s Take a Look at the (mid-month) Outlook for January.

It will be updated on the last day of December which is soon because the third Thursday of this month occurred at the latest time possible because December 1 the first day of the month was a Monday.

 

Then I present a graphic that shows both the preliminary Outlook for December and the three-month outlook for DJF 2023-2024. So you get the full picture in one graphic. For some, that may be all they are interested in. Others will be interested in the longer-term predictions and also the rationale supporting the predictions which is mostly provided by the NOAA discussion.

The top row is what is now called the Mid-Month Outlook for next month which will be updated at the end of this month. There is a temperature map and a precipitation map. The second row is a three-month outlook that includes next month.  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 the outlook for next month and the three-month outlooks are somewhat different, particularly with respect to precipitation.  This tells us that February and March will be different than January to some extent.

The full NOAA Seasonal Outlook extends through January/February/March of 2025. All of these maps are in the body of the article. Large maps are there for January and the three-month period Jan/Feb/Mar.  Small maps are provided beyond that through March of 2025 with a link to get larger versions of these maps.

NOAA provides an excellent discussion to support the maps. It is included in the body of this report. In some cases, one will need to click on “read more” to read the full article.  For those on my email list where I have sent the url of the article, that will not be necessary.