In the last week, a few swaths of precipitation occurred across the country, including the Sierra Nevada, northwest California and western portions of Washington and Oregon. Some high elevation areas of the West received precipitation as well, mostly outside of the desert Southwest. Some areas of the Upper Midwest and Northeast received a quarter of an inch of precipitation to locally over an inch. At the end of the current drought monitoring period (Tuesday morning), a powerful storm system was emerging into the Great Plains, delivering thunderstorms, high winds and wind-driven snow to parts of the Great Plains and Midwest. While some of this precipitation fell overnight Monday into early Tuesday morning, most of this precipitation will not be accounted for until next week’s U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM) update. Temperatures generally ranged from 5-15 degrees warmer than normal in the Great Plains, with locally warmer readings in the Dakotas and eastern Montana. With some exceptions, temperatures were mostly within 5 degrees of normal across the rest of the Contiguous U.S.
The Southeast U.S. had a mostly dry week, which led to degradations to short- and long-term drought conditions across parts of the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama and Florida. Mostly dry weather in the lower Midwest and southern Great Plains led to expansion of ongoing abnormal dryness and drought. Drought coverage and severity also increased in the Southwest and in Hawaii, while short-term abnormal dryness developed in south-central Alaska. Improvements to snowpack in parts of Idaho, western Wyoming and southwest Montana led to some improvements to conditions there.
Looking Ahead...
Through the evening of Monday, March 10, the National Weather Service Weather Prediction Center is forecasting parts of coastal and high elevation California, along with portions of the high elevation West to receive 0.75 or more inches of precipitation, though this is mostly expected to miss New Mexico, Montana, northern Idaho, Washington and Oregon. A few other corridors of at least a half inch of precipitation are forecast across northern Nebraska, from southeast Oklahoma to South Carolina and the Florida Panhandle, and in New England. Some areas of the Southeast may receive at least 1 inch of rainfall.
Looking ahead to March 11-15, the National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center forecast favors above-normal precipitation in the northern Contiguous U.S. and strongly favors above-normal precipitation in the western, and especially southwestern, U.S. Below-normal precipitation is favored in most of Texas, especially in far southern reaches of the state. Colder-than-normal temperatures are favored across the West, while warmer-than-normal weather is favored across most of the central and eastern Contiguous U.S.
