A warm-up off the northwest coast of South America supports the ECMWF projection of weakening La Nina and signs of El Nino in the eastern equatorial pacific toward mid-year. The ENSO signature supports drought risk for the Great Plains, East-central China and Bolivia to Uruguay.

Interestingly, drought intact over Portugal and Spain receives beneficial rainfall over the next 2 weeks. However, everywhere else in Europe is dry including most crop areas. The dryness extends to Russia. The week 3-4 outlook by ECMWF projects a warm/dry ridge over the East Europe/West Russia border. The dryness is becoming a crop issue heading toward mid-spring.

The U.S. observed another warmer than normal meteorological winter while the national pattern was somewhat drier than normal (Fig. 2). The West Coast, South and Southeast U.S. were warmest compared to normal while the precipitation pattern was very dry in the central Great Plains to Texas while just to the east the Ohio and Tennessee Valley(s) were wetter than normal.

An upper trough becomes quasi-stationary over Ukraine this week and becomes more intense next week. Ukraine weather features rain and snow showers that become mostly snow this weekend and next week as a colder regime develops. In Australia the historic heavy rains on the East Coast continue. The New South Wales coast is hardest hit this week, but heavy rains return to the Brisbane area next week.