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La Nina means cool, wet conditions to stay |
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December 31, 2017 |
Re-published with permission from the Columbia
Basin Bulletin
Colder and wetter-than-average conditions
persisted across the Pacific Northwest in
November, with a La Nina weather pattern
becoming well established and strengthening
during the month, and the outlook is for much of
the same going into March.
Those conditions starkly contrast with November
weather and the outlook for much of the rest of
the contiguous United States, particularly the
Southwest, where Arizona and New Mexico had
record-warm Novembers.
From January through November nationwide, it was
the third warmest on record, including the
seventh warmest month of November on record. But
again, the Pacific Northwest stood out from most
of the rest of the country with near-average
temperatures from January through November.
Those conditions persisted during the month of
November in the Northwest, along with
above-average precipitation.
Notably, the Pacific Northwest lies outside of
any drought designation, with the exception of a
portion of Northwest Montana. But 26 percent of
the country is considered to be in drought by
the U.S. Drought Monitor.
The powerful La Nina influence, driven by
cooler-than-average sea surface temperatures
across the equatorial and eastern Pacific, has
taken hold with forecasters having higher
confidence in their three-month outlook models.
“We are forecasting La Nina conditions to
persist through the winter,” said Brad Pugh, a
NOAA Climate Prediction Center meteorologist,
during a Thursday teleconference. That is
expected to translate to higher-than-average
temperatures and drier conditions from the
Southwest into Texas over the next three months.
Conversely, Pugh added, below-normal
temperatures and above-average precipitation are
favored across the Pacific Northwest and into
the Great Lake region through March. Notably,
the highest confidence for wetter-than-average
conditions for the next three months is in the
Northern Rockies of Idaho and western Montana.
The U.S. Seasonal Drought Outlook predicts the
entire Pacific Northwest, including western
Montana, will be void of drought conditions over
the next three months. |
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