Higher heat, drought expected across much of the United States this summer
Higher-than-normal heat is forecast to blanket most of the U.S. from July to September, drying out large chunks of the Great Plains and the Midwest while threatening to push drought into the Mississippi River Valley.
A swath of land from Wyoming and Montana southeast to Kansas, Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle will likely be the driest while Arizona and the East Coast could see more rain than normal, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday in a media call. New England and Utah face the highest risks for above normal temperatures, while the forecast is unclear for the Pacific Northwest and parts of the northern Great Plains.
The outlooks come after weather records are getting toppled across the U.S. California had its driest January-to-May period on record, while Texas had its second warmest May in data going back to 1895, said Victor Murphy, a climate services program manager with the National Weather Service. Only 1996 was hotter. Texas also had its eighth driest January-to-May on the books and was the driest since 2011, a year that became the state’s worst summer for heat and drought. This June has already delivered record heat to Texas, Murphy said.
Texas reservoirs are about 77% full at this time of year, a little bit more than levels seen in 2011, he said. The reservoirs in the Lone Star state are at about 10% below normal levels based on a 30-year average.
Most of the drought conditions across Arizona and parts of New Mexico are expected to be erased by the so-called Southwest monsoon, which typically starts around June or July, said Brad Pugh, a forecaster with the U.S. Climate Prediction Center.