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 northern parts of the region, essentially along and north of I-70. Some areas just south of I-70 did see some snow too, but not as much as areas to the north. 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 doesn't offer much optimism for most areas. However, areas along and north of I-70 have the best chance to see at least average precipitation. Again, this is typical during a La Niña episode. Areas farther south will likely get shorted.

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 the Western High Plains.

CFS Model Forecast March-May

Temperature

Precipitation

The CFS Model paints a warmer than average and drier than average spring for most of the Western High Plains.

JAMSTEC Model March-May

Temperature

Precipitation

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

Bottom-line, we see areas south of I-70 being at greatest risk for drier than average conditions this spring. We are not ready to sign off on average to above average precipitation north of I-70. However, the prospects for at least average precipitation is a little better. That being said, we still feel drier than average is the way to go across the board...

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

Temperature

Precipitation