The Evolution and Status of The 2017 Northern Plains Drought and The Ongoing Southern Drought.
Abstract
In a vast country such as the United States, droughts play a major role affecting crops, agriculture, cattle, water resources/supply, and hence the nation's commerce and economy in a big way. Sometimes, more than half the country is under drought. In close collaboration with other US agencies, at the NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, we monitor this drought on a continual basis and routinely issue the official US Govt.'s Monthly and Seasonal Drought Outlooks, the details of which are presented in another talk in this session. Here, in this presentation, we would like to discuss the details of the sudden evolution of the recent 2017 Northern Plains Drought that impacted the northern Plains states of Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota and its current status, which is its almost at its demise. We will also examine the ongoing, the other major, Southern Drought affecting a much larger area starting all the way from Southern California stretching eastward to Texas and beyond, covering much of the Southwest and the South. In these two droughts, the performance or the the lack there of, the respective rainy seasons in these regions, the US southwest summer monsoon season, the two back to back, weak La Nina events in 2016 and 2017 and the record strong 2015 El Nino event that preceded these La Nina events will also be discussed. Finally, the possible impact of the upcoming El Nino event, that is officially forecast to occur in later 2018/early 2019 will also be highlighted.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFM.H51G1382C
- Keywords:
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- 1812 Drought;
- HYDROLOGYDE: 1816 Estimation and forecasting;
- HYDROLOGYDE: 1817 Extreme events;
- HYDROLOGYDE: 1833 Hydroclimatology;
- HYDROLOGY