The US Climate Prediction Center obtained a “very strong consensus” in its prediction tools that spring (April through June 2005) will be cool in the upper Mississippi Valley and in southern and western Texas (above). Consensus is also strong that both regions will be wet. The green shades in the forecast map below pinpoint the locations where a wetter-than-normal spring is expected. Such news is welcome in Texas, where many years of drought have left reservoir water levels far below normal springtime levels. In both regions, these wetter conditions are expected to continue only into mid-summer.

    Up in Alaska, a wet spring and warmer-than-normal temperatures are expected. There are two other two regions where it is quite likely that spring will be warmer than normal, the desert Southwest centered on Las Vegas, and coastal Washington and Oregon (above). Central California (including the Bay Area), Hawaii, and southern Florida should also expect a dry spring this year, as shown below.

     Comparing the Spring forecast above with the forecast (at left) for this summer (June, July, and August), we see that the cool anomaly in the upper Mississippi valley is expected to drift west and be centered in the Dakotas by summer. Warmer than normal conditions will continue to be highly likely in the desert Southwest, but are expected also on the Pacific coast, in south Texas, and throughout Florida. An unusually cool spring is expected to flip into a hot summer this year in much of Texas.

     The warm anomaly in Alaska is expected to persist from spring into summer, but will become centered in the Bering Sea and the western half of the State.