Hey everybody. ABC10 Meteorologist,
Brendan Men, chef here.
New weekend time for a new drought update.
We're actually have a little bit of stuff
to talk about with regards to the drought,
not necessarily here in California,
but across the Southwest.
And then the monsoon and monsoon
season that is the focus of today's
drought update and the two are related.
We'll get to that in a second,
but we'll start with the
drought map for California.
And really these numbers are unchanged.
We are not seeing a lot of movement,
good or bad, here in California,
which as a whole is good news
as it regards to the drought.
We're really not in drought here
in California at all anymore.
But again, things are changing a little bit
across the Southwest due to the monsoon.
We'll talk about that in just a second.
But staying here in California,
the reservoirs are still looking very good,
86% capacity at Folsom,
90% at Orville and 84% at Shasta.
That's as of August 4th.
Here's the milestone.
There is no measurable snow left on
Dwr's snow sensors across the Sierra.
So officially there is no snow in the Sierra.
Now that is not entirely true.
Some of the very high elevation,
some of the very remote places that
DWR does not have snow sensors
at the snow pillows.
There is still some snow in the Sierra,
kind of remarkably,
but officially the numbers at this
point all read 0 because none of the
sensors are there recording snow.
So let's take a look back at July
real fast before we really just
settle in and focus on August.
July was a pretty warm month
here in Northern California.
Not going to lie.
109 degrees is what we started
the month at on July 1st and 2nd.
Then we hit it that mark again on July 16th.
Then we had lots of days
in the triple digits.
Lots of times we hit about
108 degrees for highs,
and as we look at the average high
temperature for the month as a whole,
97.8 degrees.
Normally for July, that numbers over
the last 30 years 94.4 degrees.
Now compare that to June,
which was about 3 1/2 to 4
degrees cooler than average.
July really felt quite warm.
In fact,
it was on average about 11 degrees warmer,
11 to 12 degrees warmer every
single day than June was.
So yeah, July felt hot.
Thankfully, we've kind of started
August off on a cooler note.
But I mean, the this pattern of warming,
we talk about it all the time.
We see it a lot,
not just here in California,
not just the United States,
but across the globe.
If you think about those climate stripes,
right, the Blues to the Reds.
That's what we see.
And since 1970, on average,
we've seen about 1.2 degrees of
warming every July in Sacramento.
And to rephrase that,
over the last 50 years,
July has warmed by 1.2 degrees.
So basically as a whole,
every July has been a little
bit warmer than the last one.
Now let's look at the Southwest as well,
because it was not just us here
in California that was very hot.
It was the Southwest as a whole.
It was the 4th hottest July on record.
Records go back to the year 1893.
Fourth hottest July on record in
California for the state as a whole.
For Nevada as a whole,
that was the 5th hottest.
Same in Arizona, third hottest July
in Utah during that time frame.
And it was the hottest July on
record over the last 131 years
in the state of New Mexico.
Now this is based on average high
temperatures, not average temperature.
This is just taking into
account those daily highs,
but that's pretty remarkable too,
because Texas had a top
ten hottest July as well.
So did Louisiana.
Florida almost had a top ten hottest July.
And you know where the heat Dome was because
you see it across the southern United States,
That's where it was hottest,
especially in the Southwest.
We talked about it a lot with
that weather pattern graphic,
right?
How that high pressure was just
somewhere between Texas and California.
It seemed almost all month long.
That's why some days we had those
triple digits of around 105.
Other days were closer to about 99 or so.
But really that was the story of
July and you can also see where the
heat was not because parts of the
upper Midwest and the upper Great
Plains had some pretty cool July's as
compared to some of the other ones.
Let's talk about the weather pattern.
As it stands now though,
high pressure is building back
towards California this weekend,
but then it's going to scoot
back to the East.
So we're warming up and
then we're cooling off,
at least in California as we go
through this coming work week.
We might also have some tropical
remnants trying to push in towards
the state of California as well,
which could bring us some showers,
maybe even more likely though some lightning,
some relatively dry thunderstorms.
We know that this has caused
fires in the past,
especially in August of 2020,
we had some tropical remnants
move through and it really just
sparked the entire coastal range.
There were a lot of fires going
on at that time.
Not saying that's what's
going to happen here.
Just saying anytime we have
starts to talk about maybe some
tropical remnants or something
kind of moving up the West Coast,
the United States,
always something we got to
think about here in California.
But beyond that high pressure
looks to build back in after that.
So maybe once we get to about a week,
week and 1/2 from now,
maybe we start talking about
those triple digits yet again.
But more importantly,
I want to talk about this with
regards to the monsoon and
moisture across the Southwest.
So this is the six to 10 day climate
outlook from the Climate Prediction Center.
So specifically,
this is for August 10th through 14th,
but what you notice is how much drier
than average it is likely to be.
So very likely drier across parts of the
Southwest, New Mexico, Utah and Arizona.
This is the time of year when we expect
to see rain in places like Phoenix,
in places like Tucson, Albuquerque,
even Las Vegas to some degree as well.
We know here in Northern California
our rainy season is in the winter.
We really don't expect to see anything in
terms of thunderstorms or rain or anything,
anything significant at all here in
California this time of the year.
It just doesn't happen.
We get those atmospheric rivers
in the winter time,
that's where we get our rain.
But that's not the case for
places like Arizona, New Mexico,
This is their rainy season and
look at this summer today.
So this is June 1st to date as of this video,
the driest summer on record.
This goes back again to 1893
for the state of Arizona.
5th driest on record for the
state of New Mexico.
26th driest on record for California,
which still significant,
but of course we also don't expect to
see a lot of rain to begin with here.
But notice Nevada is actually 46 out of 131,
so they're having a slightly
wetter than average summer so far.
Utah right,
where you expect to be that white
color right in the middle here,
which means it's not really wet,
not really dry. But Colorado?
Look at this the 6th wettest summer
on record in Colorado so far, right?
August is the last month of
the meteorological summer,
which is June, July, August.
So there's still time to
go for all these numbers.
Things could change for sure,
but it tells you a lot about where
that high pressure has been,
considering that Colorado has
had an extremely wet summer,
but New Mexico and Arizona have not.
So one of the things that gets brought
up sometimes and we're still trying
to exactly understand how this might
impact the North American monsoon.
One of the things we talk about El Nino a
lot with the sea surface temperature anomaly,
we see that it's building.
We see that off the coast of South America.
There's obviously a very strong signal
that temperatures are warmer than
average for the Equatorial Pacific, right.
This is hallmark,
classic textbook,
whatever adjective you want to use.
This is what El Nino looks like now.
We want to see it build out as we
talked about with the last update
that we did a couple weeks ago.
We want to see that build out
further into the Pacific,
still kind of waiting for that ocean
atmospheric connection to kick in.
So we're kind of in a holding
pattern with El Nino,
but as we move up the coast
towards towards California,
towards the Baja California as well,
we notice this cooler than average
section of ocean temperatures as well.
And what that might be leading to.
And it's kind of a delayed start,
if you will, to the North American
monsoon season as well because
high pressure likes to sit right
here over the Four Corners region
and kind of pull that moisture in.
But if you've got cooler than average
temperatures in that part of the Pacific,
that's going to lead to less evaporation,
less cloud cover,
really kind of just less moisture in
general to work with for that monsoon.
That may be playing a role in kind of
the weather pattern that we're seeing.
What's for sure though,
I also mentioned that there's some
studies out there that suggest maybe
a heavy snowpack in the Rockies could
have some effects as well on the on the
monsoon season here in the Southwest.
But that's kind of still up in
the science debate right now.
But one thing that we are looking
at for sure is that this could lead
to some increasing drought earlier
than what we would expect.
So this is at the start of summer,
right, so June 1st basically.
And that's where we see the drought
update at the time where we had some
of that drought still lingering
in the Las Vegas area,
some still in parts of like Yuma
County Down into Southern the
desert Southern California,
which we still have some of
that abnormally dry notice.
New Mexico though it was bad
near the Panhandle,
but it was improving along the more
mountainous parts of the state.
Here's what it looks like now when you
can see where we've had that change.
Now much of Southern Arizona,
again, this is the rainy season.
You'd be expecting to see things
continue to improve or hold steady.
But in fact,
we're moving back into that abnormally
dry category for Southern Arizona.
We're also seeing much of the
state of Mexico now in much worse
drought conditions than where we
were just a couple of months ago.
We do see that Colorado
eliminated their drought,
which is great on the Front Range,
but than on the West side of the Rockies.
We do see some of that
abnormally dry category,
Utah as well and parts of Las Vegas.
So we've seen some minor
improvements over here,
but certainly we're seeing some worsening
conditions towards the Four Corners region,
which is where we've seen that high
pressure basically all summer long,
right, how hot it's been in
Phoenix and Tucson and New Mexico,
places like that.
It's because that high pressure
has been sitting directly overhead.
What we want to see to get that North
American monsoon going is that high
pressure sitting over the Four Corners.
That's Colorado, Utah,
Arizona and New Mexico, right.
It sits right over those
four corners of the state,
maybe a little bit to the east.
And what happens is the rotation
just the way that the the high pressure
rotates the rotation of the atmosphere,
it brings that moisture in some in
some cases from the Gulf of Mexico
across kind of that Mexican plateau
and then up into the really the
deserts of of the Southwest, right.
It also pulls the moisture though
in from the Gulf of California
in from the Pacific as well.
And this is where we've seen some
of that cooler than average water
which may not be helping either.
So this is what we want to
see in an ideal situation,
that positioning of the high over the
four corners and also maybe just a
little bit to the east and it brings
all that moisture in and this is
the time of year that it happens.
But really we've been seeing
something a little different.
Instead of sitting right over the four
corners and pushing all this moisture
in towards places like Arizona,
Northern Mexico and New Mexico,
instead this high pressure sitting
much further West,
in the further West and especially
further southwest that this pressure sits,
this high pressure sits,
What happens is it stamps out
that convection, right.
It stamps out storm development.
It keeps that moisture off to the West.
So this is kind of what
we've seen a lot this year.
It's, it's right over Arizona,
sits right over New Mexico,
brings extremely hot temperatures,
lots of sunshine.
And that moisture gets kept away
out in towards northern Mexico's,
in some cases into Southern California,
but also more so up in towards Nevada,
in some cases the southern Sierra as well.
But that's if that high pressure
is a strong one and if the winds
line up just right,
This is all a textbook kind
of idealized situation.
This is not exactly what it's looked like.
But this is to give you an idea
of what we've seen.
This is generally where that
high pressure has been.
And This is why we've not seen a
lot of that monsoon moisture just
simply because that high pressure
has been in the wrong spot.
So we talked to an expert at the
Western Regional Climate Center
and the Desert Research Institute.
Someone that's super familiar with
monsoons knows a lot about them.
And and we had a great discussion.
Here's what he had to say.
A monsoon isn't an individual storm,
even though sometimes the term
is used incorrectly that way.
It's a seasonal shift, you know,
mostly driven by the changes in
the wind direction and and and
patterns of high and low pressure.
Dr. Dan McAvoy with the Western
Regional Climate Center at the
Desert Research Institute knows
a thing or two about monsoons.
He conducts research on drought and hydro
climatology for the Western United States,
and so the Southwest US monsoon is one of
those areas. There are
some other major monsoon
regions across the globe like
India and the Asian monsoon,
but the SW monsoon typically occurs.
It usually kicks in sometime
around late June to early July.
The official start date to the
monsoon season is June 15th and
goes through the end of September.
And so we the the Southwest US
transitions from this pattern due
due to the changing of the seasons
mostly of a subtropical high
pressure center that becomes almost
was I stationary over
somewhere around the Four Corners
region of the Southwestern US.
And depending exactly where that
high pressure center sets up will
will determine whether you have a weaker,
more stronger monsoon as it's able
to draw in less or more moisture
from the main sources which
are the Pacific Ocean
and the the Gulf of California and also
can be from the Gulf of Mexico. And
though many of us living in California
are used to hearing the word monsoon,
its direct impacts are actually more
focused along our southern border.
It's really like the southern half of Arizona
and New Mexico are most strongly impacted.
And of course, it doesn't stop at the
the the country borders Mexico itself.
South of Arizona and New Mexico have
the strongest impacts from the monsoon.
So as you go into the US further north
and West, so very far southern and
Southwest California can occasionally
get impacts from the monsoon moisture.
As you go further north,
the terrain starts to play, come into play.
So we have the Sierra Nevada,
the mountains that run north to South.
And so, for example, in Sacramento,
there's rarely any monsoonal
moisture that makes it into northern,
central and Northern California.
It's more common.
I'm into central and northern Nevada,
but still much less moisture
makes it that that far north.
But we do have surges of moisture
depending on how the synoptic
weather patterns are set up.
This doesn't come as a surprise for
those of us in Northern California.
We know our rainiest months are
in the winter time and come from
landfalling atmospheric rivers,
but for those in the Southwest,
this is their time.
It's really the rainiest time
of year for places like Tucson,
AZ, Albuquerque, NM, Phoenix, That area, Las
Vegas also can get quite a bit
of from the monsoon. This year,
though the proverbial monsoonal taps
have been slow to open up. Overall,
it's been a very slow start to the monsoon,
and I kind of like the term that
I don't know who started using it,
but nonsoon when these monsoons
don't really show up. And so it's,
it's been somewhat interesting the past
two years 20/22/2021, we're very good
monsoons with a lot of rain.
20/20 was extremely dry.
And so I've been hearing from
some folks in Arizona and Mexico
that they believe this year,
you know could start to look like 2020,
which was a very dry monsoon.
So just about no rainfall in Albuquerque.
Phoenix is having one of its driest July's
had one of its driest July's on record.
There was some spotty,
decent monsoon rain.
So, for example,
Tucson further South in Arizona,
got about two inches in July,
but that was still below
average for the year.
So the entire region is is
well below average and with
that lack of clouds and rain,
it's been extremely hot
in that region as well.
A dry monsoon or non soon isn't
necessarily a water supply problem.
Most of that comes from winter
snowpack in the Rockies.
It's more about keeping the healthy
landscape and vegetation and also
reducing fire danger for that region.
Because if it continues to be hot
and dry like we've seen this year,
then the fire danger can
persist well into the summer.
So why is the monsoon off to a slow start
off the coast of California?
It has been very cool And so
that's going to lead to less water
vapor and evaporation into the
atmosphere which which could also
lead to less moisture and cloud
cover and and monsoonal activity.
Really you know the as I mentioned
there's this high pressure system
that typically is centered around the
right around the four corners area
as the center and this year that's
been shifted a bit further South,
so centered over central
or southern Arizona and New Mexico.
And So what that's doing is,
is with the clockwise circulation
around the high pressure system just
being that a little bit further South,
it's not able to draw in the moisture from
the the big water bodies like it does.
And so this is setting up to kind of
have drought conditions start developing
again as they were starting to to
come out of at least in the short term
pull out of the drought that has been
persisting there for years and years.
Still the hope isn't lost.
The monsoon season still has
another month or so to go.
The kind of shorter term forecast,
at least for the next week or two,
still show it being quite dry
and hot with with a really no
monsoonal moisture returning.
That could change.
The longer range forecast beyond,
you know two weeks or so
aren't incredibly reliable.
And again,
since most of the precipitation with
monsoon is convection and thunderstorms,
that's even harder to predict those surges.
But it can persist well into
September and so there is hope
and a chance that it could return
for a late start to the monsoon,
which would help.
I think it'll still be tough to
make up the seasonal like the the
total monsoon deficits that have
already occurred as as the monsoon
period is is about halfway over
and again the next one to two
weeks still looks very dry.
So that does not mean there
can't be more moisture in
late August or or September.