Southwest Drought Briefing: March 13, 2023

Welcome to the Southwest Drought Briefing 

Speaker: Emile Elias | Director, USDA Southwest Climate Hub

• Welcome to the March 2023 Southwest Drought Briefing.
• Learn more about the Southwest Drought Learning Network. 
• View past webinar recordings at drought.gov/webinars.
• Introducing the speakers: 
  • Joel Lisonbee, Drought Information Coordinator at NOAA's National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES)
  • Henry Reges, National Coordinator, Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow Network (CoCoRaHS)

Current Conditions and Drought Outlook 

Speaker: Joel Lisonbee | Drought Information Coordinator, NOAA's National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS); Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES)

• Another Atmospheric River caused heavy flooding in parts of California in mid-March.
• Winter ended with two western states, Nevada and Utah, recording total precipitation in the top 10 of historical records, and California and Colorado had their 11th wettest winter.Snow water equivalent (SWE) totals are very much above average for this time of the season in almost all major river basins in the Southwest. 
• The Great Basin is currently experiencing its highest snowpack on record for this time of the season. 
• The Rio Grande basin-wide SWE is near average, and the Arkansas River Basin, on the east side of the Continental Divide, is below average.
• The seasonal outlook suggests a change to a warm, dry pattern for spring.

Introduction to the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow (CoCoRaHS) Network

Speaker: Henry Reges | National Coordinator, CoCoRaHS

• The goal of CoCoRaHS is to provide high-quality precipitation measurements and educational resources and outreach for the public.
• CoCoRaHS began in 1998, and it is now celebrating its 25th year.
• It is the citizen science project that collects precipitation data across North America
• Become a CoCoRaHS observer. Sign up at CoCoRaHS.org.
• During drought, you can submit a condition report using the CoCoRaHS Conditions Monitoring Portal.

Questions and Answers

Speaker: Gretel Follingstad | NOAA/NIDIS, CIRES