Indiana has been receiving less precipitation than normal, particularly over the last 30 days (Figure 1). In fact, southern Indiana has only received 25%-50% of the precipitation amounts it normally sees during this period. One would think this would mean “Abnormally Dry (D0)” if not “Moderate Drought (D1)” classifications for the U.S. Drought Monitor. However,[Read More…]
Beth Hall
On the third Thursday of every month, the national Climate Prediction Center releases their 3-month climate outlook for temperature and precipitation. These outlooks are presented as the level of confidence (i.e., probability of occurrence) for conditions to be above or below normal. Since last fall, these outlooks have been consistently favoring above-normal temperatures and precipitation[Read More…]
Indiana’s been seeing a lot of rain lately, while avoiding severe weather such as hail, tornadoes, and strong winds. Will this mild pattern continue, or could things shift soon? The southern states along the Gulf coast have been experience what has seemed like non-stop severe weather with tornado watches (if not warnings) becoming almost a[Read More…]
This past winter has been mild across Indiana. With the second La Niña winter in a row, there were expectations that the season would start of mild with some hope that winter would come back fiercely in February and March. While most of the season’s snowfall happened in February, it still was not enough to[Read More…]
February has brought all kinds of precipitation to the state and now conditions are muddy if not flooded. Will this continue? The national Climate Prediction Center just released their 1-month and 3-month climate outlooks for March and March-May periods, respectively. Both are conveying the same story, which is heavily influenced by our ongoing La Niña[Read More…]
The last several weeks have certainly been warmer than normal. Figure 1 illustrates just how warm with some parts of Indiana almost 7°F above normal over the past 30 days. That is quite incredible, however not many records were broken over this period. Climate outlooks for the next several weeks are indicating that above-normal temperatures[Read More…]
Last winter, earth was in a La Niña phase. While the relationships between El Niño – Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phases and Midwest climate are not strong, historically the La Niña phase has been weakly associated with milder and wetter winters. Timing is everything, though, and winters are climatologically defined as December, January, and February. When[Read More…]
A lack of abundant precipitation over the past month has caused abnormally dry conditions to expand across Indiana this week with several counties in central Indiana intensifying to the Moderate Drought stage of the US Drought Monitor (Figure 1). Some intense weather systems passed through the state this week (Figure 2), however, this was not[Read More…]
Well, it was a nice 4 weeks with no drought or abnormally dry designated areas across the state. Unfortunately, the lack of rain over the past few weeks have led to browning lawns, cracked soils, and other tell-tale signs that drought may be returning. The US Drought Monitor has designated three areas in Indiana as[Read More…]
After three consecutive weeks of Indiana being drought free according to the US Drought Monitor, it looks like next month is favored to be drier than normal and cooler than normal. That does not necessarily imply drought is expected to return since rain events may still occur. However, the predicted amounts of rain are low,[Read More…]