NOAA Updates their Four-Season Outlook on January 20, 2022

January 21, 2022Posted inweatherNo Comments

Introduction

Today is the third Thursday of the month so right on schedule NOAA has issued their Seasonal Outlook. In this article I summarize it and provide links that will take the reader to additional maps and discussions that I have not included but I have included quite a bit in this article. I want to remind everyone that last Thursday NOAA issued their ENSO outlook and that has a lot of influence on their Seasonal Outlook.  The Seasonal Outlook generally reflects La Nina conditions initially with a transition to ENSO Neutral in late Spring. Over the next three months, the Southern Tier drought intensifies but there is relief in the Northwest extending east but not reaching the Dakotas.

NOAA Updates the Status of ENSO

January 14, 2022Posted inweather2 Comments

Updated on January 14, 2022 by adding a graphic. On the second Thursday of every month, NOAA issues its analysis of the status of ENSO. This includes determining the Alert System Status. Although the current status remains the same as La Nina Advisory, the forecast has been adjusted somewhat from last month.  The earlier forecast was that we would transition to ENSO Neutral Status very soon. Now it looks like the La Nina will extend into Spring. The impact of that will show up next Thursday when NOAA issues their Seasonal Outlook. The NOAA ENSO Status Update provides an advance indication of how the forecast might change.

 

Assessing the U.S. Climate in 2021

January 12, 2022Posted inClimate, weather2 Comments

The National Centers of Environmental Information (NCEI) publishes a monthly analysis of the U.S. climate as well as an annual report.  John Bateman, a meteorologist, and an NOAA Public Affairs specialist, sends out an email that summarizes the NCEI report. This article is based on the summary written by John Bateman. At the end of the article is the link to the full NCEI Report. The key takeaways:  CONUS had the fourth warmest year in recent history and 20 billion-dollar disasters were identified.

COVID-19: What We Learned from a Recent New Mexico Press Conference

January 9, 2022Posted inHealthcareNo Comments

On January 5. 2022 the New Mexico Department of Health held its weekly press conference. That press conference reinforces my belief that it is difficult to figure out what is going on with COVID-19 and all its variants.  It is not clear to me that what is going on is part of any coherent plan.  I will discuss all of this in the body of this article.  For those who want to know more about the presentation, I have provided some links at the end of this article.