Converting Climate Prediction Center Deterministic Monthly and Seasonal Drought Outlooks to an Objective Format

The NOAA National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center (CPC) releases drought and other hazard outlooks for a range of stakeholders to aid in their situational awareness, operations, planning, and decision making. As part of NIDIS’s collaboration with the CPC on Improving NOAA Climate Prediction Center Drought Outlook Products and Services, this project component will improve the CPC deterministic monthly and seasonal drought outlooks and services by automating the production and verification process, converting to an objective format, and developing and producing new deterministic outlooks for short-term drought (<=6 months) and long-term drought (>6 months).

Specifically, the initialization of the new deterministic drought outlooks will be decoupled from the U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM). Instead, an objective drought monitor will be developed and used to initialize the outlooks. To integrate various drought forecast information, objective tools newly developed at CPC will be used to blend forecasts at different lead times. The new drought outlooks not only include those for all drought anomalies but also for short-term drought and long-term drought. The addition of deterministic outlooks for short-term and long-term drought facilitates agricultural crop planning, and the outlooks for long-term drought are essential for hydrologic applications and water resource management. Finally, the format and presentation of the outlooks will incorporate findings from the social science component of this project.

For more information, please contact Amanda Sheffield (amanda.sheffield@noaa.gov).