NOAA issued its spring seasonal outlooks on March 17th for flooding, drought, precipitation and temperature. Flood risk is highest in the lower Mississippi valley and along the Southeast coast.
Government officials have already announced a potential water rationing program as well as expected blackouts to conserve electricity in case rains do not pick up. If they don’t, Brazil is almost certainly facing its driest back-to-back rainy seasons in at least 35 years.
Millions of people in southern Africa depend on monsoon rains that begin around November and last until March or April. If the monsoon is erratic, millions of people can suffer. So far in 2014-2015, the monsoon in southeastern Africa has been anything but normal.
Never in the historical record have such large areas of the country experienced such radically different temperature extremes as they have so far in 2014.
Jeanine Jones, Interstate Resources Manager for the California Department of Water Resources, talks about the state's ongoing drought conditions and planning for California's water future.
Among the questions triggered by the entrapment of a Russian ship near Antarctica on Christmas Eve were whether the ice conditions were out of the ordinary, and, if so, whether long-term climate change was playing a role.
(VIDEO) Without a strong influence from El Niño or La Niña, the U.S. winter climate is less predictable. Based on recent trends, however, drought is likely to develop in the Southwest and Southeast over the 2013-14 winter.
Traditional weather forecasts consist of weather maps that predict exactly how much rain may fall or the maximum daily temperature of an area. NOAA climate outlooks forecast the odds that future weather conditions will be above, below, or near normal.
