Federal forecasters have begun seriously discussing a repeat of La Niña conditions, a forecast that if it holds up does not bode well for New Mexico.
This year’s remarkable drought conditions are a direct result of the 2010-11 winter-spring La Niña, which is marked by cool conditions in the equatorial Pacific and a storm track pushed to our north. That led to the driest start to a calendar year on record for Albuquerque and much of New Mexico, with a dry band extending across the southern tier of states from Arizona all the way to Florida.
The federal Climate Prediction Center, in a forecast discussion out this morning, suggests that next winter could bring more of the same:
[O]ver the last couple of weeks, forecasts created by the NCEP Climate Forecast System (CFS) have begun to indicate the re-emergence of La Niña during Northern Hemisphere fall 2011 (Fig. 7). Combined with the recent weakening of the positive subsurface ocean anomalies and the lingering La Niña state of the atmosphere, the possibility of a return to La Niña during the Northern Hemisphere fall 2011 has increased over the past month.
To be clear, this is not a forecast. It’s early yet, and the forecasters are merely raising a possibility at this point. But it’s a sobering possibility.
-- Email the reporter at jfleck@abqjournal.com. Call the reporter at 505-823-3916
