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Monday, November 10, 2008

N.M. Forecast To Be Dry for Winter Months

By John Fleck
Journal Staff Writer
          Odds favor dry weather in New Mexico and across much of the southern United States for the coming winter, according to federal climate forecasters.
        "I wouldn't be at all surprised to see it again below normal," said Ed Polasko, who tracks winter weather and New Mexico's water supply for the National Weather Service's Albuquerque office.
        The dry forecast is a result of developing ocean conditions, which influence the winter storm pattern, according to Kelly Redmond, a climatologist at the Western Regional Climate Center in Reno, Nev.
        The driest conditions are forecast for the southwestern third of New Mexico, but odds favor drier-than-normal conditions for the entire state through at least January, according to the latest forecast from the federal government's Climate Prediction Center.
        Like all weather forecasters, the Climate Prediction Center scientists are not predicting what will happen. Rather, they are trying to give the public and water users information about how the odds have shifted. Like a loaded die that can still come up a five or six, we could still have a wet year, but it is more likely that the winter of 2008-09 will come up a two or one — a dry year.
        The forecast comes on the heels of a report earlier this year by NASA scientists that the Pacific Ocean may be slipping into a long-term pattern of warm and cold areas that in the past has led to prolonged dry winters in the Southwest. Similar Pacific Ocean conditions were seen during a prolonged southwestern drought from the late 1990s until 2003.
        The dry forecast comes despite the lack of a La Niña, the ocean pattern typically linked to dry winters here. A forecast released Thursday says we should not expect that to change at least through early next year. With no La Niña this year, forecasters have turned to computer simulations of the ocean-atmosphere system, according to University of New Mexico professor David Gutzler.
        The simulations suggest that, despite the lack of a La Niña, odds favor a dry winter this year across much of the southern United States.