There is concern that the summer of 2013 may be another dry year like last year and that we would have two consecutive drought years. There are some famous double headers, 1916-1917, 1953-1954, and 1971-1972. This year could be the next on the list. Maybe. The ENSO forecast is for the El Nino conditions to remain in a neutral pattern. Neutral patterns can persist for as much as 5 years. Models are all forecasting persistence. Without any change in phase, there is a tendency to be close to average for temperatures and a little wet for precipitation. Our forecast is based on the ENSO reaining in neutral and the fact that we are still dry in spite of some much needed moisture this month. Our summer forecast is for temperatures to be a little above normal (0.5 standard devitations). That would be nothing like last year, and percieved as cooler. We forecast precipitation to be 0.0 - 0.5 standard deviations below normal, or not strongly so. This would be an improvment over last year and we'll not join the list of double header droughts.
Winter 2012-2013 Recap: El Nino never did set in and we remained neutral. The SST pattern did resemble F type, and historically this favors a warm and wet winter - 41% of the time. Warmer than normal is favored 76% of the time. My forecast said: warmer by about 0-0.5 sigma, and drier by the same. But, closer to 0.5. For this region, NCEP forecasts the same this year. The outcome is that temperatures will be 3.6 F above normal for the winter, which is more than one standard deviation above normal. So, our forecast was not so good. for precipitation, we're 1.9 inches above normal, which is 0.5-1.0 signma above the normal. A lot of snow late pushed us into the above normal category. All in all, the forecast was not very good this year. We just didn't go warm enough on temps. We only pick up one point out of 4 as does NCEP and Climatology.
Here are the numbers for the Summer 2013 forecast for Columbia Missouri and the surrounding region. The standard deviation (+/-) represents what we call the typical range for that value, and 70% of years should lie within this range. These are generally reliable for most of mid-Missouri from the Ozarks to the Iowa border and Eastern MO. Also, this year I've included verification statistics, see Lupo et al. 2008 - the link is Kelsey II on the main GCC page. Forecast scoring can also be found there, 2 points for a perfect forecast, and 0 for a bust.
NOTE: These are our forecasts and they are based on the information found in several publications on the Climate Group's website (see Climate Variability section). One should not consider that these will be 100% reliable. Also, they forecast the AGGREGATE statistical character of the summer (June, July, August) or winter (December, January, February) season. This does not mean that warm and cold spells, wet and dry spells will not all occur in one month or season. Please use with caution. If you have any questions contact me at: