Expanding East Asia Drought

Fig. 1-4: The daily soil moisture anomaly analysis across Asia, 90-day percent of normal precipitation observations, and 7-day percent of normal precipitation regime plus the ECM 15-day forecast.

Discussion: Daily soil moisture anomaly analysis from NOAA reveals a developing drought condition in Eastern China (Fig. 1). Dry soils are developing in South Korea (where wildfires are burning) and Southern Japan. The developing drought is affecting mainly the eastern portion of wheat, soybean, and corn-growing areas. The 90-day percent of normal precipitation observations reveal the dry climate across this zone (Fig. 2) especially arid during the past 7 days (Fig. 3). The latest 15-day rainfall forecasts maintain a widespread drier than normal regime across much of China (Fig. 4). Temperatures are quite warm this week, much cooler next week, and followed by another significant warm-up in the 11-15-day period.