News

What are the different ways that moisture is tracked in the SW? 

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Yesterday (Monday Sept 08) brought considerable moisture to Southern Arizona and Nevada, as both the Tucson and Phoenix metropolitan areas saw considerable flooding, including record rainfall totals for both areas.  (read more)

Mike Crimmins with the Aug 2014 Rainlog Climate Summary (read more)

How do (Pacific) tropical storms affect the weather patterns of the SW?  What type of tropical storm paths affect weather in the SW? (read more)

In the August Southwest Climate Podcast, Zack Guido and Mike Crimmins talk about variability and timing of monsoon precipitation, and why frequent and sustained moisture might matter more than heavy infrequent rains (for drought, especially).  El Niño is still dragging its heels, but it still looks good for a weak to moderate event this winter. (read more)

The 2014 monsoon can be characterized many ways—the amount and intensity of rain has been spotty both spatially and temporally, the humidity has been persistently high, and precipitation has improved short-term drought conditions in many areas. Certainly it cannot be characterized as a dud. (read more)

This post was originally published as part of the August 2014 Southwest Climate Outlook

An “El Niño Watch” continues this month as issued by the NOAA Climate Prediction Center several months ago. The watch is just that: we are waiting and watching for the development of a full-fledged El Niño event that has yet to materialize across the equatorial Pacific Ocean. Several indicators of El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) status declined, moving back towards ENSO-neutral values over the past month instead of leaning towards an El Niño event as they had been.  These shifts included slight cooling in the eastern Pacific Ocean and near-average wind patterns along the equator. But for those cheering on the development of an El Niño event, not all hope is lost (read more).

This post was originally published as part of the August 2014 Southwest Climate Outlook

What is the exact criteria to call something El Niño?  Is El Niño a continuum or is there a binary switch where it's either an El Niño event or not?

How closely linked is the strength of El Niño with observable effects in the Southwest?  Would a weak El Niño look that different from no El Niño at all?  (read more)

This week, we released the 5th episode in the CLIMAS podcast series[1] 1075' - Shortage on the Colorado River, which explores what a shortage declaration on the Colorado River would mean to those living in the Southwest.  In this post - Ben McMahan recaps some of the key issues that formed the impetus for this podcast series, summarizes the podcast episodes, and gives some backstory from folks who have been writing about the Colorado River (Basins) for years (read more)

1075’ – Shortage on the Colorado River is a CLIMAS podcast series that explores what the first shortage declaration on the Colorado River would mean to those living in the Southwest.

In this episode, CLIMAS climate scientist Zack Guido speaks with Alan Forrest, Director of Tucson Water, about various strategies that Tucson implemented to deal with potential water shortages, the conservation and recapture efforts that areas of municipalities in Southern Arizona, and the practical realities of providing municipal water to an growing population in the southwest. (read more)