Drought conditions likely to stay away for awhile

Dalhart Weather Review
by Aaron Graves

Is the drought really gone, or will it return? That's the "million dollar question" I asked Nicholas Fenner at the National Weather Service office in Amarillo. Since a lot credit went to an El Niño weather pattern for breaking our drought, what is going to happen once it fades away? Will our local weather patterns return to normal, or slip back into drought?

The short answer? Thanks to all the precipitation we saw in 2015, along with what could be a wetter-than-normal spring, we should be in good shape for awhile.

We enjoyed a wonderfully wet 2015, with 21.37" of precipitation as recorded at the Dalhart airport. That was 3.78" above normal and our 11th wettest year on record. No surprise, then, that our four year severe drought came to a sudden, soggy end.

The drought relief was area-wide. "Most locations in the Texas and Oklahoma Panhandles received between 150%-200% of normal precipitation by year’s end," reads the 2015 Weather Year in Review posted on the Amarillo NWS website. "Precipitation totals comparable to this year had not been seen since the 1960’s. Amarillo reached its 4th wettest year on record. Other locations including Borger, Pampa, and Lipscomb experienced their wettest year on record. Beneficial rainfall during the year finally pushed Lake Meredith back above 25% capacity (first time since 2006) and Greenbelt above 23% capacity."

El Niño refers to warmer than normal water in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, which helps to alter weather patterns across the United States. The current El Niño is one of the strongest on record. The Amarillo NWS report continues: "This oceanic and atmospheric pattern helped direct many notable weather systems across the Panhandles [in 2015] including a January snowstorm that brought 12 inches of snow to Amarillo, record-setting rainfall in May, river and playa lake flooding throughout the summer, a rare November tornado outbreak, and a Thanksgiving weekend ice storm that halted holiday travel for many."

But then things dried up. Now, the latest U.S. Drought Monitor map shows abnormally dry conditions in and around Boise City, Oklahoma, just 40 minutes north of us. Why?

El Niño isn't the final authority on who gets rain or not. "Since El Niño represents only a piece of the overall climate puzzle, shorter term climate patterns were likely behind the unusual pattern in January and February," Fenner said. He then put our dry winter into context. Even though Dalhart received 0.80" of precipitation from December 2015 through February 2016, he noted it was still wetter than 25 other years since 1949. "So, nothing at drought level yet," he said.

Fenner continued: "El Niño patterns typically influence

weather through the spring time when they are on the decline, so we can still expect better chances for above normal precipitation through the rest of the spring. It will only take a pattern change to see a southern shift of the jet stream again." Fenner's optimism is backed up by the the Climate Prediction Center, which is calling for a 50% chance of above normal precipitation for New Mexico and most of the Texas Panhandle through the end of May. In addition, the CPC seasonal drought outlook gives us the all clear over the next three months.

Still, the current El Niño is weakening. Will this allow the drought to return? "That's the million dollar question," Fenner answered. He noted that we are in a much better position with sufficient soil moisture to handle most short term dry patterns, such as what we saw over the past few months. Barring a prolonged hot and dry period, we should be in good shape. If we do get above average rainfall this spring, all the better.

The first week of March was mild and quiet, with highs generally in the 70's. This pattern is forecast to continue through the weekend. Keep in mind that windy, dry days give rise to wildfire dangers. Dallam and Hartley counties are currently under burn bans.

The NWS will hold storm spotter training at the fire department on Monday, March 14, at 6 p.m. It is free and open to the public. More on that in a special blog post coming soon.