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<br />Klaus Wolter. NOAA Climate Diagnostic Center. Long Term Weather Outlook <br />Mr. Wolter said he believed the El Nino is beginning to stabilize and still has a good <br />chance of delivering precipitation this spring. He also made a brief presentation on the <br />historical impact ofEl Nino's dating back to 1968. He believed there was more <br />foundation to be optimistic about this spring versus last year. <br /> <br />The following executive summAry has been added to the minutes. <br /> <br />1. El Nino has weakened a bit more since last month, making a transition <br />towards near-normal conditions the most likely scenario for the upcoming <br />spring. Even if much ofthe near-equatorial El Nino features were to vanish <br />soon, lingering SST anomalies over the full North Pacific basin should help <br />the atmosphere remember its El Nino associations into our spring season. <br /> <br />2. Historically, El Nino has been associated with wetter than average <br />conditions for November, March, and May in Colorado, often translating into <br />decent early season skiing conditions (indeed!), as well as a prolonged wet <br />spring. These relationships are strongest over the plains of eastem Colorado, <br />and weakest for the highest elevations of the north-central mountains. <br />Unfortunately, reduced snowfall over the north-central mountains during <br />December-February is common under El Ninoi as well, so the last two seasons <br />have evolved pretty much as expected, if a little bit on the low end for much <br />of southern Colorado. Much of February has been on the wet side, reducing the <br />ccumulated deficit since November for much of the interior southwestern <br />U.S. <br /> <br />3. Compared to last month's forecast for Apr-Jun '03, increased odds towards <br />wetness in southwest Utah and eastern Colorado are consistent with lingering <br />El Nino impacts, while increased odds towards renewed drought conditions in <br />southern New Mexico reflect the possible demise of the El Nino event by this <br />spring. <br /> <br />4. Bottomline: After several wet months, December and January did not bring <br />enough moisture into Colorado to maintain the momentum. However, <br />February has apparently picked up where November left off and narrowed the <br />gap towards normal snowpack conditions considerably (as oftoday, the <br />statewide snowpack was posted as 85% of normal, from just over 70% at the <br />beginning of the month). For the next three months, lingering El Nino <br />influences should favor continued wet conditions in much of Colorado and <br />surrounding states. In fact, for Colorado alone, a recovery to near-normal <br />snowpack conditions is feasible by April, if one considers the typical changes <br />during El Nino springs. Stay tuned for the next update of this webpage <br />(http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/-kew/SW casts/) around March 19th. <br />