People say there’s never any good news, but there’s certainly some today! Look at the most recent U.S. Drought Monitor and revel in how blank it is. When was the last time the West saw so little drought?
As of May 16, less than 9 percent of the continental U.S. saw any form of drought condition. Even in areas where drought conditions persist, the severity is relatively low, particularly considering recent years.
This same time last year saw bands of deep red—representing the most extreme “Exceptional Drought” classification—spread across the southern Central Plains and into the Southwest. At that time, almost half of the country was in some form of drought.
“Widespread precipitation this week led mostly to improvements in moderate drought and abnormally dry regions across the Southeast and South, and in the Rocky Mountains in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico,” wrote Curtis Riganti of the National Drought Mitigation Center, and Brad Rippey of the USDA in last week’s drought summary.
[inline_image file=”cec0583bfa6275de7d7deb698dfe1e34.jpg” caption=”The West is almost completely drought-free”]
“This week, a strong jet stream with several embedded storm systems will move into the continental U.S. and will interact with copious amounts of moisture,” they continued, acknowledging that many of the areas likely to get rain have already gotten quite a bit.
Projections from the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center anticipate continued to slightly increasing drought conditions in western Washington through the end of August, but diminishing drought conditions in Arizona and New Mexico.
Summer seasonal outlooks anticipate above normal precipitation through much of the country through the end of August. The center of the country is expected to see normal or below normal temperatures this summer, but fall 2019 and winter 2019/2020 is expected to be hotter than normal across the entire U.S.
According to the USDA’s Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS), the water situation in the West is better than it’s been for a while, particularly in the Intermountain West (see map below).
“Although the snow is now quickly melting across the West, there are still some areas that have much above normal snowpack,” read the weekly Water and Climate Update from NRCS.
“The current snowpack from California to Colorado is mainly above normal to over twice normal, which bodes well for water supply forecasts. Meanwhile, the Pacific Northwest to Montana and Wyoming have normal to below normal snowpack for this time of year.” — WLJ
