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.

We did see a storm earlier in the month move through Northeast Colorado, and it did benefit some areas. The map below shows the percent of normal precipitation for the past 30 days and 90s days.

Green is good and brown is bad...aside from that one storm, we haven't had much at all east of the mountains. You can see that reflected in the 90 day map...lots of brown.

The pattern for February offers very little optimism for Northeast Colorado, which is typical. February is usually a dry month for Northeast Colorado. The latest CFS Model (shown below) is not that optimistic, but does paint average precipitation for Feburary. Other areas of Colorado are forecast to be drier than average by this model... But again, I wouldn't get too excited for a wet February. Average precipitation in February is nothing to champion...

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 Northeast Colorado.

CFS Model Forecast March-May

Temperature

Precipitation

The CFS Model paints average to slightly above average temperatures, with the coolest region being the far northeast part of the state. The CFS Model is showing average precipitation for the spring, with drier than average conditions lurking just to the south. Again, areas north of I-70 will do better with this setup versus areas farther south. No surprises here...

JAMSTEC Model March-May

Temperature

Precipitation

The JAMSTEC Model shows a warmer than average and drier than average spring too...

Bottom-line, we see little optimism for the spring when it comes to seeing a wetter than average spring for Northeast Colorado. I think if we luck out, we may see average moisture. However, given the current situation and the things that are governing our weather pattern, we think that average to below average precipitation and average to above average temperature look likely.

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

Temperature

Precipitation