By mid-next week, heavy rain and possible severe weather will develop across Texas to Missouri. Once the Texas to Missouri rainfall is established middle of next week, MJO influence maintains the heavy rain pattern throughout the 8-14-day period. Included with that rainfall are additional severe storms.

Positive phase of the Scandinavia index (SCAND) supports anomalous warmth and dryness across much of Europe through the next week. SCAND shifts to negative phase during the medium range which suggests a cooler and potentially wetter regime. The 15-day population weight Europe temperature forecast identifies the warmth through 10 days shifting cooler in the extended range.

As of mid-February, 73.7% of the U.S. is in a dry-to-drought condition up from 66.2% in mid-December according to NOAA. Harsh D2-D4 drought is observed in 22.6% of the U.S., an increase of almost 10% during the past 2 months. The equatorial East Pacific subsurface is warming dramatically encouraging El Nino ahead! Two La Nina to El Nino first half of year analogs are 1997 and 2023 which featured dryness Iowa JUN-SEP having U.S. Corn Belt implications.

The rapid warming of the Nino12 SSTA region has caused a wet bias to western South America in recent weeks. However, the moisture from the warm water/high moisture source region is entrained into vigorous upper troughs moving across South America sweeping heavy rain into Brazil while leaving Argentina dry the next 1-2 weeks.