El Nino & seasonal outlooks - great news for the drought!

I wanted to provide a quick update on El Nino as we near the beginning of fall. We are anticipating it being a major factor in how the fall and winter season plays out for Kansas. As winter draws near, we will come back to the topic, so we'll keep our focus more on fall for the discussion here. 

As a refresher, El Nino is the warmer than average water that gathers along the Equator in the Pacific. The area monitored is shown below. It's not the entire Pacific, nor is it the entire area along the Equator. Right now, the average water temperature is 1.6°C above, which would signal a moderate El Nino at this stage. 

Some of the warmer water continues to push westward (close to 87/88°C) in the westernmost part of the area that is monitored. 

The last El Nino fall that we had was back in 2018. Average water temperature during that time was roughly .7-1°C above, so this one (currently) is stronger, but that doesn't always mean a more dramatic impact on our local weather. What was the fall of 2018 like? Remember, there are many other factors in play besides El Nino, but the months of September through November were all primarily cooler than average. 

September Temperatures:

October:

November:

Precipitation in September of 2018 was near to above average in most of the state (but not all).

October 2018 was a very WET month across the state. Dodge City had it's wettest October on record with over 6 inches. Salina and Wichita had a top 5 wettest Octobers:

November 2018 had some rain over central and northern Kansas, but the south had a slightly drier month.

Latest seasonal thoughts:

There's never any guarantee in the weather business, BUT we do feel confident in some very different weather playing out as fall and winter set in. The southern half of the US tends to get more moisture in El Nino patterns, and I think we are just at the beginning of seeing that turn into reality. Here's the latest outlook for September, October, and November. 

Will the moisture be spread evenly over those three months? It's hard to say, but as we approach mid-September, expectations are we end up with just "average" moisture this month (which would be about 1.50-3") for most of the state.

If you want to go out even further, October, November, and December show similar ideas of above average moisture. 

You might be asking "how much of this could be snow?" - No way to tell yet and the signals on temperature aren't clear this far out. Just wanting to put this out there for the drought-stricken areas that have really struggled in recent years. I think better weather is coming this way. El Nino can be quite helpful for the Plains, and we feel like this is just the beginning of better things to come.