Drought Outlook
April 19 – July 31
For the complete Drought Forecast, click here - http://trunc.us/KAzg6w
Latest Seasonal Assessment . The Drought Outlook for April 19 – July 31, 2012 is based on short-, medium-, and long-range forecasts, initial conditions, past years with similarly-evolving weather and equatorial Pacific sea surface temperature patterns, objective weather and climate model output, and climatology. Since the release of the previous Drought Outlook issued on April 5, 2012, warm and dry weather caused drought to intensify and expand from the Gulf Coast and the south Atlantic states northward along the Eastern Seaboard. Farther west, conditions intensified to drought status in relatively small sections of western Kentucky, central Illinois, and the central High Plains. Overall, the current Drought Outlook is not optimistic. Substantial improvement is expected only in southern Maine, the southern half of Florida with the onset if its rainy season, and western North Dakota. Meanwhile, limited surface moisture improvement is anticipated in the rest of the Northeast, North Carolina, the immediate southern Atlantic coastline, northern Florida and adjacent Alabama, and the upper Midwest. In addition, late-period monsoonal rains could bring limited improvement to southern sections of New Mexico and Arizona. Drought should persist where it exists elsewhere (including Hawaii) and may expand to cover the central Rockies. It should be noted that the Drought Outlook is hampered by uncertainty regarding the track and intensity of a storm system that could drop heavy precipitation on part or all of the Atlantic Seaboard during April 21 – 23. This Drought Outlook assumes, as a compromise, a storm of moderate strength that affects the entire East Coast.
Forecaster: A. Artusa
Next Outlook issued: May 3, 2012 at 8:30 AM EDT