Another Dry Winter

Here’s the official NOAA news release:

Elusive El Niño challenges NOAA’s 2012 U.S. Winter Outlook
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2012/20121018_winteroutlook.html

Here’s the money quote:

“This is one of the most challenging outlooks we’ve produced in recent years because El Niño decided not to show up as expected,” said Mike Halpert, deputy director of NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center. “In fact, it stalled out last month, leaving neutral conditions in place in the tropical Pacific.”

Meaning they have even less confidence than usual in this years outlook.

Here’s the temperature outlook:

Here’s the precipitation outlook:

Recent studies showed that the Rocky Mountain drought is a combination of low precipitation and high temperatures. The low precip is obvious, but the high temps cause higher evaporation and evapotranspiration by plants, reducing ground water and river flows even more.

If you look at the overlap between dry and warm in these winter outlooks, seems like drought for eastern Oregon, eastern Washington, northern Nevada, northwestern Utah, and all of Idaho.

But I am not a climate forecaster, and don't play one on TV.

[Edit: Make that northWESTERN Utah.]