From: Chris Smallcomb - NOAA Federal [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, August 07, 2014 8:24 AM To: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: NWS Reno -- Update on Drought Status and El Niño Prospects Good morning all. There have been some fresh developments in the forecast of El Niño for the upcoming winter. As weve been saying the predictability of El Niño is quite low until we get into the fall, and that is panning out. The chances of an El Niño developing this winter have dropped from 80 to 65 percent based on the latest outlooks. Even if one developed, El Niño is generally a poor predictor of winter weather in western Nevada and the Sierra. Weve had wet El Niño winters and weve had dry ones. One thing to keep in mind is that our precipitation deficits are so large over the past three years, that even with a very wet winter wed still likely be in some form of drought status next year. So bottom line is our outlook for this coming winter remains quite nebulous. Hopefully well know more as we head into the fall. Attached are a couple images showing the latest Drought Monitor for California and Nevada. No major changes over what was in the monitor last week. Also attached is a graphic showing how the recent rains weve had really mean nothing in terms of improving the drought situation -- as storms have mostly been too scattered and falling at the wrong time of year to really improve the drought. We need snowpack to do that. Apologies for the downer message but I wanted to keep you in the loop on the latest El Niño developments. As always write back if you have questions or need additional info. -Chris
Posted on: Thu, 07 Aug 2014 18:22:07 +0000
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