1. National Integrated Drought Information System Southeast US Pilot for Apalachicola- Flint-Chattahoochee River Basin 4 December 2012

2. Outline Welcome – Keith Ingram, Southeast Climate Consortium, UF Current drought status and how we got here – David Zierden, Florida Climate Center, FSU Streamflows and groundwater – Tony Gotvald, USGS Reservoir status and projections – Bailey Crane, US ACE Seasonal outlooks – David Zierden, FSU Streamflow forecasts – Jeff Dobur, SE River Forecast Center, NOAA Summary and Discussion – Keith Ingram, SECC

3. Current drought status from Drought Monitor http://www.drought.unl.edu/dm/monitor.html

4. 14-Day Precipitation Totals

5. Cumulative Rainfall Deficits Past 30 days Since Jan. 1 http://water.weather.gov/precip/

6. Realtime stream flow compared with historical monthly averages Current: http://waterwatch.usgs.gov Previous Brief:

7. Below Normal 7-day Average Streamflows Below normal 7-day average streamflow as compared with historical streamflow for day shown http://waterwatch.usgs.gov Current: Previous brief:

8. Lake Lanier Inflows http://waterwatch.usgs.gov Chestatee near Dahlonega (02333500) Chattahoochee near Cornelia (02331600)

9. Current Streamflows Chattahoochee at West Point (02339500) Flint at Bainbridge (02356000) http://waterwatch.usgs.gov

10. Streamflows Apalachicola at Chattahoochee (02358000) http://waterwatch.usgs.gov

11. Groundwater Status http://groundwaterwatch.usgs.gov Miller County, GA (Upper Floridan Aquifer)

12. USACE – ACF Operations

14. 2012 ACF Basin Composite Conservation & Flood Storage

15. Lake Lanier

16. West Point

17. W.F. George

18. Woodruff

19. 5-Day Precipitation Forecast http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/qpf/day1-5.shtml

20. 7-day average Pacific Ocean SST Anomalies http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/MJO/enso.shtml

21. Multivariate ENSO Index

22. 1-3 Month Precipitation Outlook 1 Month 3 Month

23. Fall Rainfall Climatology

24. U.S. Drought Outlook

25. Above Normal Near Normal Below Normal Lake Lanier Inflows Whitesburg West Point Columbus WF George Columbus Woodruff Blountstown Lovejoy Carsonville Albany

26. Above Normal Near Normal Below Normal Lake Lanier Inflows Whitesburg West Point Columbus WF George Columbus Woodruff Blountstown Lovejoy Carsonville Albany

27. Summary Drought conditions have spread througout the entire ACF with drought in the central part of the basin categorized as extreme to exceptional Similarly, streamflows are below average streamflows throughout the entire basin, though inflows to West Point are normal because of releases from Lake Lanier Ground water levels in S Georgia remain at historic low levels Basin inflows are about 1600 cfs below outflows, so reservoir levels have continued to decline, with Lake Lanier approaching the threshold for conservation zone 4

28. Summary The 5-day outlook is for less than 1 inch of precipitation in the northern half of the basin and no rain in the southern half ENSO conditions remain neutral, so a total of 3 to 6 inches of rainfall are expected for the basin in each month of December and January Streamflow forecasts at 1 and 3 months all suggest that drought conditions will persist or worsen

29. References Speakers David Zierden, FSU Tony Gotvald, USGS Bailey Crane, USACE Jeff Dobur, SERFC Moderator Keith Ingram, SECC Additional information General drought information http://drought.gov http://www.drought.unl.edu General climate and El Niño information http://agroclimate.org/climate/ http://agroclimate.org/climate/ Streamflow monitoring & forecasting http://waterwatch.usgs.gov http://www.srh.noaa.gov/serfc/ Groundwater monitoring http://groundwaterwatch.usgs.gov

30. Thank you! Next briefing – 18 December 2012, 1:00 pm EST Slides from this briefing will be posted at http://drought.gov/drought/content/regional-programs/regional-drought- webinars Please send comments and suggestions to: ktingram@ufl.edu