Science Source
Temperature impacts on the water year 2014 drought in California
- States that California is experiencing one of the worst droughts on record
- Uses a hydrological model and risk assessment framework to understand the influence of temperature on the water year (WY) 2014 drought in California
- Examines the probability that this drought would have been less severe if temperatures resembled the historical climatology
- Results indicate that temperature played an important role in exacerbating the WY 2014 drought severity
- Finds that if WY 2014 temperatures resembled the 1916–2012 climatology, there would have been at least an 86% chance that winter snow water equivalent and spring‐summer soil moisture and runoff deficits would have been less severe than the observed conditions
- Reports that the temperature forecast skill in California for the important seasons of winter and spring is negligible, beyond a lead time of 1 month, which might hinder skillful drought prediction in California
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Headline
Jan 25, 2018 | NOAA Climate.gov
In some places, experimental NOAA models could have predicted Western snow drought eight months in advance
