NOAA Long-lead Forecasts Through The Warm Season

Highlight: NOAA/CPC indicating hot (Southwest and northern Mid-Atlantic) and wet (Ohio Valley to Virginia) EXTREMES May to July! Drought risk shifts westward into early summer and then back into the Great Plains late summer.

Fig. 1-4: NOAA/CPC 30-day and 90-day outlooks of temperature and precipitation probability.

Discussion: The latest NOAA/CPC long-lead probability forecasts for the U.S. for the month ahead (May) and seasonal (MAY/JUN/JUL) outlook indicates EXTREME climate risk (Fig. 1-4). First, excessive heat including records is indicated across Texas in May expanding throughout the Southwest U.S. in JUN/JUL. Second, in a bit of a surprise, the Ohio Valley is wet during May and that wet pattern extends to Virginia and intensifies on the East Coast for JUN/JUL. The 90-day precipitation outlook by NOAA/CPC leads to increased emphasis on Western U.S. drought into mid-summer and away from drought risk in the Central/East-central U.S. (Fig. 5). However, the NOAA/CPC late summer/early autumn 90-day outlooks maintain the anomalous hot-to-warm (national) regime AND push a late warm season drought risk into the Great Plains (Fig. 6-7). The AUG/SEP/OCT precipitation outlook also implicates Florida to the Mid-Atlantic States for tropical cyclone impacts.

Fig. 5: Latest seasonal drought outlook from NOAA/CPC valid through July.

Fig. 6-7: NOAA/CPC 90-day outlooks of temperature and precipitation probability for AUG/SEP/OCT 2021.