1. Western Drought Activities
Kelly Redmond
Western Regional Climate Center
Desert Research Institute
Reno Nevada
U.S. Drought Monitor Forum
Portland Oregon
2007 Oct 10 – 11

2. Calibrating the Oregon Drought Index
Sustained Drought
Normal
Dryness
Severe Drought
Moderate Drought

3. Last 30 Days

4. How to get more dots,
faster.

5. Opening page acis.dri.edu/wxcoder Joint RCC/NWS/NCDC project

6. Welcome to Station Named Demo

7. Form presented to station
WFO Reno
Now enter observations

8. Form with 2 days opened, precip times, remarks

9. Printable copy for local storage

10. Observer error, logical inconsistency, TMIN > TOBS

11. Bad Snow Depth
Observer entered 1.0 inch
Whole inches only

12. Hmmmm…
This is a monthly extreme temperature.
Are you sure ??
Please confirm.

13. Email sent to site administrator
Monthly extreme exceeded
This may merit further attention.

14. More complex station
This one also has
soil and river information

15. rcc-acis.org

16. ACIS Brochure
available at
rcc-acis.org

17. Westmap: U Arizona, DRI/WRCC, OSU NOAA – NCTP …CLIMAS/WRCC/CAP
Can be expanded to cover additional states

18. States, counties, hydro basins, climate divisions, grid squares, stakeholder pixels
Uses 4 km (maybe soon 2 km) PRISM Monthly Time Series last month

19. September-August 12-month Precipitation
Gallatin County, Montana
With
9-Year Running Mean

20. June-July-August Summer Precipitation
Luna County, New Mexico
With
10-Year Running Mean

28. Sierra Nevada
12 Months
Thru
September 2007

29. Sierra Nevada
Winter-Centered
12-Month
July - June
Precipitation
Thru June 2007

30. Tioga Pass April PT ft.

31. Tioga Pass. 2007 Saturday May 12. 1455 PT. 9943 ft.

34. July-June
Precipitation
South
Coastal
California
thru

39. Running mean plotted at end of 5-year period.
Reconstructed natural flow at Lees Ferry. Water Years White: preliminary estimates.
Running mean plotted at end of 5-year period.
WY estimate (Aug 07) approx 69 percent

40. Lake Powell Storage Through August 29, 2007
Currently 50.2 % full
Minimum: 33 % full on April 8, 2005

41. Lake Powell Elevation Through August 29, 2007
Water level on August 29, 2007 was ft, ft below full.
Minimum level on April 8, 2005 was 3555 ft, -145 ft below full.
Source:

42. Average of 19 climate models.
2007.
Figure by
Gabriel Vecchi.
R. Seager, M.F. Ting, I.M. Held, Y. Kushnir, J. Lu, G. Vecchi, H.-P. Huang, N. Harnik, A. Leetmaa, N.-C. Lau, C. Li, J. Velez, N. Naik, Model Projections of an Imminent Transition to a More Arid Climate in Southwestern North America. Science, DOI: /science

43. Seager et al, 2007. Average of 19 climate models. Figure by Naomi Naik.

44. Yesterday Tomorrow
Seager et al, 2007.

47. Estimated effects of climate change on Colorado River streamflow (Lees Ferry):
Small decrease (0-8 percent by mid-century) Christensen and Lettenmaier, 2007
Large decrease (up to 40 percent) Hoerling and Eischeid 2007
Moderate decrease (in between) Seager et al 2007
None of these show streamflow going up!
B. Any decrease is a source of concern !
C. We have to resolve these differences !

48. ?
Is the current Southwest drought a once-or-twice-a-century drought like those of the past 500 years … ? ?
… or …
a harbinger of things to come, a different type of drought
that we have not observed before ? ?

50. Getting NIDIS off the ground.
Relation of NIDIS to the Climate Test Bed.

51. Thank You !
20 February 2007

52. Discards