Final 2011-2012 Winter Forecast: Southwest Forecast

BREAKDOWN: SOUTHWEST ANALYSIS

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The Southwest will have a pretty interesting winter. We project the Southwest region to get a variety of temperatures and precipitation anomalies. It appears the West Coast will be wet once again as storms make their way onshore like last year, in part due to La Nina. Despite the wet Coast, the eastern areas of the Southwest will have to deal with a continuing drought and warmer temperatures also due to La Nina. This time, the warmer temperatures will extend farther west than typically experienced. As we stated in the nationwide final 2011-2012 winter forecast (click here for the nationwide forecast), we had been anticipating this for several months. We were also anticipating much below average temperatures for the Northern Plains, which brings into my head a concern: with the occasional cold hits the Southern Plains take, this frigid air from Minnesota and the Dakotas may create some damage to crops should the floodgates open from the north and pour cold temperatures down to the south.

Regional times are as follows:

Nationwide Winter Forecast Release: 12:00 PM CDT
Southwest Winter Forecast Release: 12:10 PM CDT
Southeast Winter Forecast Release: 12:20 PM CDT
Northeast Winter Forecast Release: 12:30 PM CDT
Midwest Winter Forecast Release: 12:40 PM CDT
Northwest Winter Forecast Release: 12:50 PM CDT
South Central Plains Winter Forecast Release: 1:00 PM CDT