PACIFIC NORTHWEST DEWS
National Integrated Drought Information System
Drought.gov
Pacific Northwest Drought Early
Warning System

October Drought & Climate Outlook Webinar

Summary and Recording Now Available!
Thank you to the speakers and to those of you who participated in the October 2020 Pacific Northwest (PNW) DEWS Drought & Climate Outlook Webinar. Below you can find summary of the presentations. We have also posted a recording for those that were unable to participate in the live event.
And if you can't wait for the next webinar, mark your calendar and register now for the next webinar on Monday, December 14, 2020.
October 2020 PNW Webinar Summary
Climate Recap and Current Conditions

Nicholas Bond, Office of the Washington State Climatologist, nab3met@uw.edu

  • Temperatures for the last 3 months have been on the warm side for the Pacific Northwest.
  • Precipitation was light during summer in most regions; more recently it has been wet in the north and dry in the south.
  • Portions of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana remain in Extreme Drought (D3).
Seasonal Conditions & Climate Outlook

Mike Halpert, NWS Climate Prediction Center, mike.halpert@noaa.gov

  • ENSO Alert System Status: La Niña Advisory
  • La Niña conditions are present and expected to persist through the winter.
  • This favors a northward shift in the jetstream and storm track.
  • Odds favor above-normal precipitation in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana
  • This should lead to improving drought conditions (and possibly drought removal) in these states.
Overview and Application of Fuelcast.net

Robb Lankston, Lankston Consulting LLC, lankston.consulting@gmail.com

  • Fuelcast is a new program within the Rangeland Production Monitoring Service that provides projections of expected fuel and forage conditions.
  • Provides weekly projections of fuel and forage conditions based on weekly remote sensing data (eMODIS), daily precip (GridMet), and EDDI.
  • Starts 4 months prior to average peak for each pixel (each pixel gets a unique phenology) and uses a machine learning process (models reformulated each week).
  • Provides projections of 1-hr fuel yield, 1-hr fuel yield compared with normal, annual herb yield, herb yield compared to normal, day of year (peak), day compared with normal (departure), Surface Fire Behavior Fuel Model, and Trend of Prediction.

Access Fuelcast.net here:
WSU Rangeland Resilience Videos & Case Studies

Sonia Hall, Washington State University, sonia.hall@wsu.edu

  • Goal is for farmers and ranchers to learn from peers who are experienced at dealing with risk.
  • Worked with three farmers/ranchers to produce multi-media case studies.
  • Focused on different aspects of resilience: the health of the rangeland vegetation (ecological resilience), rangeland health and resources diversity and flexibility (operational resilience), and community and agency relationships (community resilience).
  • There is no one recipe for increased resilience that works across the inland Pacific Northwest. Different cattle operations with different challenges use different strategies to increase resilience.

Access the case studies:
For any additional information, contact Britt Parker, NOAA/NIDIS
Other News & Upcoming Events
National Water Model Fact Sheet
This fact sheet, created by the National Water Extension Program, defines what is currently available via the National Water Model, identifies how to access model information, and highlights the utility of the information. The National Water Model is the first U.S. national water forecast model. It is a high-resolution hydrologic model that provides estimates of existing conditions and forecasts of key components of the water cycle (including snowpack, soil moisture, streamflow, and evapotranspiration) in the continental U.S. and Hawaii. Learn more >
Post-Fire Water Impacts
What does current science and experience tell us about the near and long-term impacts of fire on water quality and how to recover? This webinar, sponsored by the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy, includes presentations from Christina Burri, Denver Water, Monica Emelko, University of Waterloo, and Chuck Rhoades, USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station. Learn more >
Call for Statements of Interest for Tribal Climate Adaptation Research Projects
The Northwest and Southwest Climate Adaptation Science Centers (NW CASC, SW CASC) invite statements of interest for tribal climate adaption research projects to be initiated in Federal Fiscal Year (FY) 2021. The NW CASC statements for tribal climate adaptation research projects that focus on the following priorities: (1) management of aquatic resources, (2) management of at-risk species and habitats, (3) management of invasive species and diseases, (4) management of forest ecosystems, and (5) human dimensions of climate adaptation. Statements of interest submitted to the NW CASC should have geographic footprints within the states of Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and/or California (northern).

Deadline for Statements of Interest (SOI): December 17, 2020 (5 pm PST)
Deadline for Full Proposals: February 26, 2021 (5 pm PST)