La Niña has been ruling the roost, as we expected it to back in the fall. It is alive and well in the Pacific Ocean, as you can see from the map below.

All of that "blue and green" off the West Coast of South America is water that is cooler than average. This represents the La Niña from a sea surface temperature anomaly perspective. Another area that I think has gotten far less publicity than the La Niña, is the warmer than average water off the west/southwest coast of California. It is warmer than average over a wide area. This limited temperature gradient coupled with the ongoing La Niña is not conducive to an active storm track for southern areas. In fact, it favors the exact opposite.

The one bit of possible good news I see is that this La Niña may have peaked, and will gradually start to relax. The animation below shows that trend. Warmer than average water in the Western Pacific undercutting the colder than average water, which tends to weaken the La Niña and eventually lead to its end.

Does this mean we will immediately see drought relief when La Niña comes to an end? No...and because we are in the grips of a regional drought, it may take quite a while to erase this footprint.

It has been very dry across most of Texas for the past few months. However, the Panhandle region and West Texas have been especially dry. The map below shows the percent of normal precipitation for the past 30 days and 90s days.

Green is good and brown is bad...lots of brown on those maps.

The pattern for February offers very little optimism for most of Texas. This is especially true for the Panhandle Region and West Texas. It is possible some areas of Texas could still see average precipitation...especially the farther east and southeast you live. Again, this is just for February...

Let's look at the latest models and what they have to say for the upcoming spring.

NMME Model Forecast March-May

Temperature

Precipitation

The NMME Model forecasts a warmer than average and drier than average spring for Texas.

CFS Model Forecast March-May

Temperature

Precipitation

The CFS Model paints a warmer than average and drier than average spring for Texas.

JAMSTEC Model March-May

Temperature

Precipitation

The JAMSTEC Model shows a warmer than average spring. However, it shows a split state in terms of precipitation. The southeast part of the state is average to wetter than average, with the northwest part of the state being drier than average.

Bottom-line, we don't see much optimism for most of the state this spring. Again, the far east/southeast part of the state will have the best chance for precipitation. Areas farther west and northwest, don't look good at all.

Spring Outlook
Below is our temperature and precipitation spring (March, April, May) outlook:

Temperature

Precipitation