Global Soil Moisture Anomalies and 3-Month Trend

Fig. 1: Global soil moisture anomalies and 3-month trend.

Discussion: During JUL/AUG/SEP 2022 large regions of wet soil moisture change outnumbered large areas of dry soil moisture change 12-8. The large region wet soil moisture changes from the past 3 months were most dramatic in India, interior northeastern Asia, Southeast Asia, and parts of North-central and east tropical Africa. Other areas receiving wet climate conditions to turn soils wetter were southwest/southeast Brazil plus parts of Peru and Chile, the Southwest U.S., and Southeast Europe to Western Turkey. Large regions of dry climate inspiring a dry soil moisture change and/or drought affected the central Great Plains, Western Canada to the Northwest U.S., Western Europe, much of Central Russia and China. Semi-permanent high-pressure ridge areas well-correlated with warm SSTA in the middle latitudes helped to cause drought in the U.S., Western Europe, and China while stronger than normal wet monsoon regimes including tropical cyclone influence, soaked Southeast Asia, India and the Southwest U.S./northwest Mexico.