Contact: Randee Exler FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Barry Reichenbaugh 1/18/95
at the AMS Conference:
(214) 761-2950
Stephanie Kenitzer
(301) 713-0622
Warm El Nino characteristics in the tropical Pacific Ocean will continue to affect U.S. climatic conditions through the month of February and the year ahead, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists announced today. El Nino conditions are characterized by warming of sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean that can drastically change weather in parts of the globe.
The announcement was made at the 75th anniversary meeting of the American Meteorological Society in Dallas, where NOAA scientists began a new era of long-range climate forecasting. For the first time they issued monthly and seasonal outlooks of temperature and rainfall probabilities for regions of the United States as much as a year in advance. Previous climate predictions have only been made for a single 90-day period in the future.
Two products were released: a 30-day outlook for February, 1995, and a series of 13 90-day "seasonal" outlooks going out into the future in overlapping fashion in one-month steps. A "season" is defined as a three-month or 90-day outlook. For instance, the just-released product includes outlooks for February-March-April 1995, March-April-May, 1995, etc., out to February-March-April 1996. An updated outlook will appear each month.
"Many segments of the economy will benefit from predictions of climatic conditions affecting the United States," said Elbert W. Friday Jr., director of NOAA's National Weather Service. "Farmers can use the climate information these products offer to make better decisions for crop planting; power companies can use the information in making fuel distribution decisions."
Extending the reach of climate outlooks out to a year in the future should also benefit commodities brokers, construction firms and many other climatically-sensitive industries that make business decisions based on weather conditions, Friday added.
Advances in long-range forecasting techniques and improvements in supercomputing technology over the past several years have finally made it possible to make objective climate predictions beyond the current 90-day limit, said David R. Rodenhuis, director of the Climate Analysis Center that produces the new outlooks.
"For the first time we are making objective, long-lead climate predictions out to a year in advance. This is the payoff of years of data collection and research efforts during the past decade," Rodenhuis said.
So what's in store for the nation, according to the just released climate outlooks?
Climate conditions will likely continue to be warmer and wetter than average for much of the nation into the spring, with cool conditions developing over sections of the middle part of the country through the summer and into the autumn. Warm conditions are expected to continue in the far west and the east.
The southern portions of the country will likely experience wetter than normal conditions into the spring. This pattern is consistent with the El Nino pattern.
Armed with this kind of information, a southern farmer could anticipate that there's a reasonable chance that soil moisture will be higher than normal, and could factor this information into planting decisions.
Both the monthly and seasonal outlooks will be issued electronically around the middle of each month, appearing on the Internet on the Climate Analysis Center's World Wide Web Home Page, and also over National Weather Service media (Automation of Field Operations Services (AFOS) and Family of Services). The Internet address is http://nic.fb4.noaa.gov.
Climate Outlook users may obtain more information about the products by contacting the CAC's Prediction Branch at (301) 763- 8155 or their Regional Climate Centers at the numbers listed below:
Northeast (Ithaca, N.Y.) 607-255-5950 Southeast (Columbia, S.C.) 803-737-0800 Southern (Baton Rouge, La.) 504-388-5021 Midwest (Champaign, Ill.) 217-244-8226 High Plains (Lincoln, Neb.) 402-472-8294 Western (Reno, Nev.) 702-677-3106