Experts recap August 2024 and provide outlooks through December
A collage of typical climate and weather-related events: floods, heatwaves, drought, hurricanes, wildfires and loss of glacial ice. (Image credit: NOAA)
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NOAA Monthly U.S./Global Climate Media Telecon
September 19, 2024, at 11:00 am EDT via AT&T Teleconference
Hosted by NOAA NESDIS Public Affairs
Media advisory about briefing:
https://www.noaa.gov/media-advisory/noaa-monthly-us-global-climate-report-call-september-19
Lois (Operator):
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the NOAA monthly climate call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode, should you require assistance during the call, please press star then zero and an operator will assist you offline. As a reminder, your conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, John Bateman. Please go ahead.
John Bateman:
All right, thanks so much, Lois. Good morning and thank you for joining this monthly climate update call part of the suite of climate services that NOAA provides to government, business, academia, the media and the public to support informed decision-making. I'm John Bateman with NOAA Communications and I'll be facilitating the call today. If you have additional questions after the conclusion of today's call, my colleague John Leslie and I can both be reached by email at and I will spell it, N-E-S-D-I-S.P-A@N-O-A-A.G-O-V. That's nesdis.pa, as in public affairs, @noaa.gov. Today's update will feature two short presentations followed by an operator assisted question and answer session at the end.
A copy of the presentation our speakers will follow can be downloaded from the link in the media advisory. And with that, I will introduce our speakers. Our first presenter is Ahira Sanchez-Lugo, a climatologist with NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information who will provide a summary of the August 2024 US and global climate report, as well as the latest drought monitor update. Oursecond presenter is Scott Handel, a meteorologist with NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, who will provide the latest El Niño La Niña update, as well as the October 2024 outlook in the US seasonal outlooks for temperature, precipitation and droughts through December. We will now kick off this media briefing with Ahira from NOAA NCEI.
Ahira Sanchez-Lugo:
Thank you, John, and good morning everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I'm going to go ahead and start on slide two to look at the global temperatures for August 2024. As you can see from both maps, during the month we saw that warmer than average conditions were present across much of the world's surface with record warm temperatures that were present across parts of Europe, Africa, the Caribbean region, parts of the Atlantic Ocean, Asia, Australia and Antarctica, as well as areas of the Indian Ocean and parts of the Western Pacific Ocean and the Southern Ocean. There were some locations that did experience near to cooler than average temperatures during the month, and these areas included parts of the Russian Far East and Western Alaska, much of Argentina and Chile and parts of Central Africa, as well as parts of Asia. Averaged as a whole, the global service temperature for August 2024 was 1.27 degrees Celsius or 2.29 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average.
This value was the warmest for August in NOAA's records that extend back to 1850 for a total of 175 years. And this value was just 0.01 degrees Celsius or 0.02 degrees Fahrenheit above the previous record that was set last year in 2023. This month also marked the 15th consecutive month of record high global temperatures. Looking at continental averages, each continent had eight temperature anomaly for the month of August that ranked among the top six warmest August. The continents of Europe and Oceania had their warmest August on record. Moving now to slide number three to look at the seasonal temperature for the globe. The global surface temperature for the three-month period of June through August was 1.24 degrees Celsius or 2.23 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average, and this was the warmest June through August period since NOAA's records extend back to 1850. Again, this value surpassed the previous record that was set only last year in 2023.
The June through August period was warmer than average across much of the globe. As you can see from the map, record high temperatures were present across parts of each continent and ocean with near to cooler and average conditions that were limited to parts of the Russian Far East, western Alaska, eastern Antarctica, northern and southern parts of the Atlantic Ocean and southeastern parts of the Pacific Ocean. The month of August marked the end of the Northern Hemisphere meteorological summer and the Southern Hemisphere meteorological winter. And the Northern Hemisphere had its warmest summer on record. The Southern Hemisphere had its warmest winter on record. Both hemispheres surpassed the previous record that was again set last in 2023.
Regionally, each continent had a [inaudible 00:05:25] temperature but not ranked among the warmest June through August period. Europe and Asia [inaudible 00:05:34] having their warm [inaudible 00:05:36] through August period on [inaudible 00:05:38] move to slide number four to look at the state temperatures. The global surface temperature for the period of January through August was the highest on record at 1.28 degrees Celsius or 2.30 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average. And this value surpassed the previous record that was set back in 2016. During the first eight months of the year, they were characterized by warmer than average conditions across much of the globe with record warm temperatures engulfing much of the Atlantic Ocean Central America, the northern half of South America, Europe, Central Africa, the North Indian Ocean, the Western Pacific Ocean, and across parts of Asia, Australia and North America.
Regionally, South America, Europe and Africa had their warmest January through August period while North America and Oceania had their second warmest. There were some areas that did experience near to cooler than average conditions during the first eight months of the year, and these areas included parts of the southeastern Greenland and its surrounding ocean, the southern tip of South America and the southeastern Pacific Ocean and Eastern Antarctica.
Looking ahead, according to our statistical analysis, the year 2024 is virtually certain to rank among the five warmest years on record, and excuse me, it has over 95% chance of ranking as the warmest year on record. Moving now to slide number five to look at the US for the month of August. During August 2024, temperatures were above average across the Western and Northeastern contiguous US. Meanwhile, near statewide average temperatures were observed from North Dakota to the Carolina. Averaged as a whole, the US had an August temperature of 74 degrees Fahrenheit and this is 1.9 degrees Fahrenheit above average. This value tied with August of 1998 as the 15th warmest August in 130 year record. In terms of statewide averages, five states had a top 10 warm August with Florida having its second-warmest August on record and Texas and New Mexico having their third-warmest August. However, no state had a statewide average temperature that ranked among the 10 coldest August.
In terms of precipitation for the month, it varied across the US. We did see above average precipitation along the East Coast, across the central Rockies, the northern tier states, and from Northern California to Washington state. While below average conditions were present across much of the south from the southern California coast to the Central Gulf Coast extending into the Ohio Valley. The states of Alabama and Mississippi had their driest August on record and Tennessee had its second-driest August. Meanwhile, New York had its fourth-wettest August on record. During the month of August. We did see some tropical systems that did impact the US and its territories briefly. Some of these included Debby
that made landfall as a category one hurricane early and during the month in northwestern Florida and then made a second landfall as a tropical storm in South Carolina on August 8th. The storm brought heavy rains, flooding and strong winds to parts of the southeast.
We had in Puerto Rico tropical storm Ernesto which brought significant flooding and caused nearly half of the island to lose power due to its strong winds during August 13th through 14th. Then we had Hurricane Hone that impacted Hawaii at the end of the month causing flooding and power outages. Moving now to slide number six to look at the seasonal temperatures for the US. The summer average temperature for the contiguous US was 73.8 degrees Fahrenheit, and this value is 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit above average, and this ranked as the fourth-warmest summer in the 130-year record. Currently, the summers of 1936 and 2021 tie as the warmest summer on record for the US followed by the summer of 2022. Temperatures were above average across much of the Western US and from the Gulf Coast to the northeast. The states of Arizona, California, Florida, Maine and New Hampshire had their warmest summer on record.
An additional 20 states had a statewide average temperature that ranked among the 10 warmest summers on record. However, no state had a statewide average temperature that ranked among the 10 coldest summers on record. The summer precipitation for the contiguous US was near average during the three-month season at 8.30 inches. We saw above average precipitation across portions of the upper Midwest and in parts of the northeast, southeast Gulf coast and central Rockies. The state of Michigan saw its fifth-wettest summer on record while West Virginia had its fifth drive summer on record. Other areas that had below average conditions included the Ohio Valley to the Gulf Coast from the northern Rockies to California and across portions of the Central and Southern Plains. Moving on to slide number seven to look at the year to date. For the January through August period, the average US, the contiguous US average temperature was 56.9 degrees Fahrenheit or three degrees Fahrenheit above average, and this ranked as the second-warmest January through August period on record. Only the January through August period of 2012 was warmer.
Temperatures were above average across nearly all of the contiguous US, with the states of New Hampshire Vermont and West Virginia having their warmest January through August period. And then we had an additional 25 states that had a top five warmest year to date period. The year to date precipitation total for the contiguous US was its wettest in the 130-year record with a total of 22.93 inches. Above average precipitation was observed across a large portion of the upper Midwest. The Northeast and Deep South, Rhode Island, Connecticut both had their second-wettest January through August period and nine additional states ranked among their top 10 wettest year to date. Precipitation was below average across parts of the Northwest, Northern Plains and Central Appalachians and Western Texas during this eight-month period. No states ranked among the 10 driest year-to-date period on record. Moving into slide eight to look at current drought conditions across the US. As of today, about 36% of the continental US was in some type of drought. This is about 12 percentage points more than a month ago, and during this drought, drought was present across parts of the Western high Plains, southern Midwest and Southeastern regions, and there were some drought conditions that did improve during the last month across parts of northern parts of the Western region and across parts of the southern region. However, drought did deteriorate across parts of the southern parts of the Western region and across the Midwest and the Southeastern regions. Outside of the contiguous US, moderate to severe drought was present across parts of Hawaii, while Alaska had abnormally dry conditions across parts of its panhandle. And Puerto Rico remains drought-free. That is all that I have for today. I will now turn it over to CPC's Scott Handel. Thank you.
Scott Handel:
Thank you Ahira, and good morning everybody. This is Scott Handel, meteorologist from the National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center. I'm going to start off by bringing your attention to slide nine of the presentation with the current observations and forecast for the El Nino Southern Oscillation. The figure on the left shows the current sea surface temperature anomalies for the tropical Pacific. The horizontal black line in the center represents the equator. The blue shading represents areas where sea surface temperatures are below normal and the orange and red areas correspond to areas where sea surface temperatures are above normal. As you can see, there's a lot of light blue and' light orange near the center of the map, indicating that on average sea surface temperature anomalies are currently weak near the equator with a tilt toward below normal temperatures in the eastern and central Pacific and above normal in the western Pacific.
Sea surface temperatures in what's called the Nino 3.4 region of the tropical Pacific are roughly 0.2 degrees Celsius below normal, which puts us into neutral territory, which means that we are currently not in an El Nino or a La Nina state. However, sea surface temperature anomalies are slowly becoming more negative, and once these sea surface temperatures reach 0.5 degrees Celsius below normal, that would put us in La Nina territory. Therefore, looking into the future, an emergence of La Nina is the most likely scenario as we head into the fall and winter. And we are currently in a La Nina watch which indicates conditions are favorable for La Nina to develop. The chart on the right indicates that there's a
greater than a 70% chance of La Nina developing during the September, October, November period and a greater than an 80% chance of La Nina as we head later into the fall into the winter.
However, a strong La Nina event is unlikely this year with only around a 10% chance of it reaching that level. Therefore, thereafter, a transition to the neutral phase of El Nino's Southern Oscillation is the most likely outcome as we progress into and through next spring. Now, moving from the tropics to closer to home, I'd like to draw your attention to slide 10, which represents our monthly outlook for the month of October. These outlooks represent the probability that the mean temperature or total precipitation for the month will be below, near or above normal. The red and orange shading on the map to the left indicates areas where above normal temperatures are the most likely outcome, while the blue shading indicates areas where below normal temperatures are most likely. Looking at the map of the left above normal temperatures are favored across the southwestern and northeastern parts of the lower 48 states, as well as much of Florida and northern parts of Alaska during the month of October.
This is especially true for the Northeastern contiguous United States and extreme northern Alaska where there's greater than a 50% chance of above normal temperature. The disanticipated warmth is due to a variety of factors such as trends, model guidance, influences from the Madden-Julian oscillation, and below normal sea ice extent in the case of Alaska. On the flip side, parts of southwestern Alaska are favored to have below normal temperatures to impart the transient below normal sea surface temperatures and adjacent waters. Looking at precipitation, the areas of green on the map on the right indicate regions where the total precipitation is favored to be above normal for October, and the brown areas represent regions where below normal precipitation is the most likely scenario. Below normal monthly total precipitation amounts are favored for much of the Great Basin and southwest eastward across the central and southern Rockies and Plains and parts of the central Mississippi Valley. Above normal precipitation is favored along the east coast, much of the northeast and southeast and across the eastern and Central Gulf Coast.
A tilt toward above normal precipitation is also indicated for parts of the Pacific Northwest and for western and northern Alaska. Dynamical model guidance, recent trends and the Madden-Julian oscillation contribute to this outlook. In the case of the southeast and the central and Eastern Gulf Coast regions. The potential for tropical activity also contributes to increased probabilities of above normal precipitation. It should be noted that probabilities in all locations are modest due to the low predictability common during this time of year. Now, looking further ahead to the three-month period from October, November and December, I'd like to bring your attention to slide 11.
During this period, the potential of impacts from La Nina become more apparent, but generally warmer and drier than normal weather is favored across the southern part of the country. Our exception to this favored dryness across the southern tier is the white area across the southeast on the map on the right, where the potential for tropical activity early in the season may counteract the typical dryness associated with the La Nina later in the season. Farther to the north, increased chances for warmer than normal conditions extend north across the eastern contiguous United States consistent with recent trends.
Dryness has generally tried to weather across the northern contiguous United States. So above normal precipitation is favored for much of the northwestern contiguous United States, Great Lakes and Northeast. These areas of favored above normal precipitation is generally corresponding with the anticipated La Nina-based state. Conversely, La Nina tends to favor cold for parts of Alaska. This coupled with below normal sea surface temperatures adjacent to Western Alaska leads to a slight tilt toward colder than drier than normal weather for much of southern Alaska.
Milder than normal weather and above normal precipitation are favored for northwestern parts of the state consistent with recent trends and below normal sea ice extent. Wrapping things up with the drought outlook, I'd like to bring your attention to slide 12. The brown areas in the map indicate where drought is currently ongoing and expected to continue. This includes much of the southwestern United States and parts of the Great Basin eastward across the Southern and Central Plains and northwards to the northern High Plains.
Ongoing impactful drought conditions are also noted across much of the Ohio and Tennessee valleys and much of the central and southern Appalachians. Additionally, with the dry pattern pager for the Central and Southern Plains, drought expansion is likely for these areas represented by the yellow shading. On the flip side, drought improvement or removal is likely for the northwest parts of the great Lakes in northern Ohio Valley, parts of the Southeast and eastern portions of the central Appalachians. That's it from the Climate Prediction Center. Back to you John.
John Bateman:
Thanks so much, Scott. We will now take specific questions from the call participants. Please be sure to identify who you'd like to answer the question if possible. And Lois, could you please remind the call participants how they can ask a question and then please queue up the first question.
Lois (Operator):
Thank you. And ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press a one then zero on your touch-tone phone. You will hear an acknowledgement tone that you've been placed in the queue, and you may remove yourself from queue at any time by repeating the one zero command. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the number. Once again, if you have a question, please press one then zero at this time. And one moment for our first question. We have a question from Rebecca Hersher from NPR. Please go ahead.
Rebecca Hersher:
Hi, thanks so much for doing this. I just had a quick question about the number of consecutive months for global record temperatures? I wanted to make sure I heard Ahira correctly. This is the 15th consecutive month. Was that for land and oceans or just lands?
Ahira Sanchez-Lugo:
Okay, so I'm going to repeat it. It was the 15th and it was for both combined global land and ocean.
Rebecca Hersher:
Great. Thanks so much. And if I could just ask a follow-up.
Ahira Sanchez-Lugo:
Sure.
Rebecca Hersher:
Do we have any sense of why the ocean heat seems to have the record streak seems to have ended even though the streak has not ended for the globe as a whole?
Ahira Sanchez-Lugo:
Okay, so you're asking why the oceans are so warm, correct?
Rebecca Hersher:
Yeah. And why the ocean streak has ended even though the land plus ocean streak has not ended?
Ahira Sanchez-Lugo:
Yes. Okay. Let me double check something really quickly, but it's a combination of both. The climate change, the temperatures continue to increase at the ocean level, and we see that at the land. And right now I want to say if my memory doesn't fail me, the global ocean for the month of August, let me see really quickly. Was second. So even though it wasn't record warm, it was still a year record, so it was still significant. Does that make sense? Yeah.
Rebecca Hersher:
Yeah, great.
Ahira Sanchez-Lugo:
It was second warmest [inaudible 00:22:27] for August. So it was still significantly warm even though it didn't surpass the record that was set last year.
Rebecca Hersher:
Great. That's super helpful. Thank you.
Ahira Sanchez-Lugo:
Does that make sense?
Rebecca Hersher:
Yeah.
Ahira Sanchez-Lugo:
Okay. Thank you.
Lois (Operator):
Thank you. And once again, if you do have a question, please press one and zero. And we have a question from Doyle Rice from USA Today. Please go ahead.
Doyle Rice:
Oh yes, good morning. Thanks for doing this. I had a question. How close are we to 2012 as far as warmest year on record in the US? I know you said that from January to August we're number two behind 2012.
Ahira Sanchez-Lugo:
Yes. So 2012 surpassed... So we are about one degree Celsius, excuse me, one degree Fahrenheit went behind 2012 for the year to date.
Doyle Rice:
Oh, okay. Thank you very much.
Ahira Sanchez-Lugo:
You are welcome.
Lois (Operator):
And again, if there are any questions, please press one then zero. And at this time there's no further questions. Thank you.
John Bateman:
All right. Thanks so much, Lois. If there are no further questions, I'll wrap up the call. First, I'd like to thank all of our speakers for their time and everyone else for participating in this conference call. I'll end by reminding you all to mark your calendar for a few upcoming events. The release of the September, 2024 US Climate Report and Billion Dollar Disaster Summary is scheduled for October 8th. The release of the September, 2024 Global Climate Report is scheduled for October 10th. And in lieu of our monthly media climate call next month, NOAA will host the 20 24 25 US Winter Outlook Media Briefing at 11 A.M. Eastern Time on October 17th. Again, next month in lieu of our monthly media call, NOAA will host the 2024/25 US Winter Outlook Media Briefing at 11 A.M. Eastern on October 17th. A media advisory will be issued and posted online ahead of that event. And lastly, an audio file of this call will be posted on the NOAA.gov media advisory site later today. And if you have any further informational needs, please feel free to email me, John Bateman. My contact information is available at the top of the media advisory. Thanks so much.
Lois (Operator):
Thank you. And that does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for your participation and for using the AT&T TeleConference. You may now disconnect.
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TRANSCRIPT
NOAA Monthly U.S./Global Climate Media Telecon
September 19, 2024, at 11:00 am EDT via AT&T Teleconference
Hosted by NOAA NESDIS Public Affairs
Media advisory about briefing:
https://www.noaa.gov/media-advisory/noaa-monthly-us-global-climate-report-call-september-19
Lois (Operator):
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the NOAA monthly climate call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode, should you require assistance during the call, please press star then zero and an operator will assist you offline. As a reminder, your conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, John Bateman. Please go ahead.
John Bateman:
All right, thanks so much, Lois. Good morning and thank you for joining this monthly climate update call part of the suite of climate services that NOAA provides to government, business, academia, the media and the public to support informed decision-making. I'm John Bateman with NOAA Communications and I'll be facilitating the call today. If you have additional questions after the conclusion of today's call, my colleague John Leslie and I can both be reached by email at and I will spell it, N-E-S-D-I-S.P-A@N-O-A-A.G-O-V. That's nesdis.pa, as in public affairs, @noaa.gov. Today's update will feature two short presentations followed by an operator assisted question and answer session at the end.
A copy of the presentation our speakers will follow can be downloaded from the link in the media advisory. And with that, I will introduce our speakers. Our first presenter is Ahira Sanchez-Lugo, a climatologist with NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information who will provide a summary of the August 2024 US and global climate report, as well as the latest drought monitor update. Oursecond presenter is Scott Handel, a meteorologist with NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, who will provide the latest El Niño La Niña update, as well as the October 2024 outlook in the US seasonal outlooks for temperature, precipitation and droughts through December. We will now kick off this media briefing with Ahira from NOAA NCEI.
Ahira Sanchez-Lugo:
Thank you, John, and good morning everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I'm going to go ahead and start on slide two to look at the global temperatures for August 2024. As you can see from both maps, during the month we saw that warmer than average conditions were present across much of the world's surface with record warm temperatures that were present across parts of Europe, Africa, the Caribbean region, parts of the Atlantic Ocean, Asia, Australia and Antarctica, as well as areas of the Indian Ocean and parts of the Western Pacific Ocean and the Southern Ocean. There were some locations that did experience near to cooler than average temperatures during the month, and these areas included parts of the Russian Far East and Western Alaska, much of Argentina and Chile and parts of Central Africa, as well as parts of Asia. Averaged as a whole, the global service temperature for August 2024 was 1.27 degrees Celsius or 2.29 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average.
This value was the warmest for August in NOAA's records that extend back to 1850 for a total of 175 years. And this value was just 0.01 degrees Celsius or 0.02 degrees Fahrenheit above the previous record that was set last year in 2023. This month also marked the 15th consecutive month of record high global temperatures. Looking at continental averages, each continent had eight temperature anomaly for the month of August that ranked among the top six warmest August. The continents of Europe and Oceania had their warmest August on record. Moving now to slide number three to look at the seasonal temperature for the globe. The global surface temperature for the three-month period of June through August was 1.24 degrees Celsius or 2.23 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average, and this was the warmest June through August period since NOAA's records extend back to 1850. Again, this value surpassed the previous record that was set only last year in 2023.
The June through August period was warmer than average across much of the globe. As you can see from the map, record high temperatures were present across parts of each continent and ocean with near to cooler and average conditions that were limited to parts of the Russian Far East, western Alaska, eastern Antarctica, northern and southern parts of the Atlantic Ocean and southeastern parts of the Pacific Ocean. The month of August marked the end of the Northern Hemisphere meteorological summer and the Southern Hemisphere meteorological winter. And the Northern Hemisphere had its warmest summer on record. The Southern Hemisphere had its warmest winter on record. Both hemispheres surpassed the previous record that was again set last in 2023.
Regionally, each continent had a [inaudible 00:05:25] temperature but not ranked among the warmest June through August period. Europe and Asia [inaudible 00:05:34] having their warm [inaudible 00:05:36] through August period on [inaudible 00:05:38] move to slide number four to look at the state temperatures. The global surface temperature for the period of January through August was the highest on record at 1.28 degrees Celsius or 2.30 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average. And this value surpassed the previous record that was set back in 2016. During the first eight months of the year, they were characterized by warmer than average conditions across much of the globe with record warm temperatures engulfing much of the Atlantic Ocean Central America, the northern half of South America, Europe, Central Africa, the North Indian Ocean, the Western Pacific Ocean, and across parts of Asia, Australia and North America.
Regionally, South America, Europe and Africa had their warmest January through August period while North America and Oceania had their second warmest. There were some areas that did experience near to cooler than average conditions during the first eight months of the year, and these areas included parts of the southeastern Greenland and its surrounding ocean, the southern tip of South America and the southeastern Pacific Ocean and Eastern Antarctica.
Looking ahead, according to our statistical analysis, the year 2024 is virtually certain to rank among the five warmest years on record, and excuse me, it has over 95% chance of ranking as the warmest year on record. Moving now to slide number five to look at the US for the month of August. During August 2024, temperatures were above average across the Western and Northeastern contiguous US. Meanwhile, near statewide average temperatures were observed from North Dakota to the Carolina. Averaged as a whole, the US had an August temperature of 74 degrees Fahrenheit and this is 1.9 degrees Fahrenheit above average. This value tied with August of 1998 as the 15th warmest August in 130 year record. In terms of statewide averages, five states had a top 10 warm August with Florida having its second-warmest August on record and Texas and New Mexico having their third-warmest August. However, no state had a statewide average temperature that ranked among the 10 coldest August.
In terms of precipitation for the month, it varied across the US. We did see above average precipitation along the East Coast, across the central Rockies, the northern tier states, and from Northern California to Washington state. While below average conditions were present across much of the south from the southern California coast to the Central Gulf Coast extending into the Ohio Valley. The states of Alabama and Mississippi had their driest August on record and Tennessee had its second-driest August. Meanwhile, New York had its fourth-wettest August on record. During the month of August. We did see some tropical systems that did impact the US and its territories briefly. Some of these included Debby
that made landfall as a category one hurricane early and during the month in northwestern Florida and then made a second landfall as a tropical storm in South Carolina on August 8th. The storm brought heavy rains, flooding and strong winds to parts of the southeast.
We had in Puerto Rico tropical storm Ernesto which brought significant flooding and caused nearly half of the island to lose power due to its strong winds during August 13th through 14th. Then we had Hurricane Hone that impacted Hawaii at the end of the month causing flooding and power outages. Moving now to slide number six to look at the seasonal temperatures for the US. The summer average temperature for the contiguous US was 73.8 degrees Fahrenheit, and this value is 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit above average, and this ranked as the fourth-warmest summer in the 130-year record. Currently, the summers of 1936 and 2021 tie as the warmest summer on record for the US followed by the summer of 2022. Temperatures were above average across much of the Western US and from the Gulf Coast to the northeast. The states of Arizona, California, Florida, Maine and New Hampshire had their warmest summer on record.
An additional 20 states had a statewide average temperature that ranked among the 10 warmest summers on record. However, no state had a statewide average temperature that ranked among the 10 coldest summers on record. The summer precipitation for the contiguous US was near average during the three-month season at 8.30 inches. We saw above average precipitation across portions of the upper Midwest and in parts of the northeast, southeast Gulf coast and central Rockies. The state of Michigan saw its fifth-wettest summer on record while West Virginia had its fifth drive summer on record. Other areas that had below average conditions included the Ohio Valley to the Gulf Coast from the northern Rockies to California and across portions of the Central and Southern Plains. Moving on to slide number seven to look at the year to date. For the January through August period, the average US, the contiguous US average temperature was 56.9 degrees Fahrenheit or three degrees Fahrenheit above average, and this ranked as the second-warmest January through August period on record. Only the January through August period of 2012 was warmer.
Temperatures were above average across nearly all of the contiguous US, with the states of New Hampshire Vermont and West Virginia having their warmest January through August period. And then we had an additional 25 states that had a top five warmest year to date period. The year to date precipitation total for the contiguous US was its wettest in the 130-year record with a total of 22.93 inches. Above average precipitation was observed across a large portion of the upper Midwest. The Northeast and Deep South, Rhode Island, Connecticut both had their second-wettest January through August period and nine additional states ranked among their top 10 wettest year to date. Precipitation was below average across parts of the Northwest, Northern Plains and Central Appalachians and Western Texas during this eight-month period. No states ranked among the 10 driest year-to-date period on record. Moving into slide eight to look at current drought conditions across the US. As of today, about 36% of the continental US was in some type of drought. This is about 12 percentage points more than a month ago, and during this drought, drought was present across parts of the Western high Plains, southern Midwest and Southeastern regions, and there were some drought conditions that did improve during the last month across parts of northern parts of the Western region and across parts of the southern region. However, drought did deteriorate across parts of the southern parts of the Western region and across the Midwest and the Southeastern regions. Outside of the contiguous US, moderate to severe drought was present across parts of Hawaii, while Alaska had abnormally dry conditions across parts of its panhandle. And Puerto Rico remains drought-free. That is all that I have for today. I will now turn it over to CPC's Scott Handel. Thank you.
Scott Handel:
Thank you Ahira, and good morning everybody. This is Scott Handel, meteorologist from the National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center. I'm going to start off by bringing your attention to slide nine of the presentation with the current observations and forecast for the El Nino Southern Oscillation. The figure on the left shows the current sea surface temperature anomalies for the tropical Pacific. The horizontal black line in the center represents the equator. The blue shading represents areas where sea surface temperatures are below normal and the orange and red areas correspond to areas where sea surface temperatures are above normal. As you can see, there's a lot of light blue and' light orange near the center of the map, indicating that on average sea surface temperature anomalies are currently weak near the equator with a tilt toward below normal temperatures in the eastern and central Pacific and above normal in the western Pacific.
Sea surface temperatures in what's called the Nino 3.4 region of the tropical Pacific are roughly 0.2 degrees Celsius below normal, which puts us into neutral territory, which means that we are currently not in an El Nino or a La Nina state. However, sea surface temperature anomalies are slowly becoming more negative, and once these sea surface temperatures reach 0.5 degrees Celsius below normal, that would put us in La Nina territory. Therefore, looking into the future, an emergence of La Nina is the most likely scenario as we head into the fall and winter. And we are currently in a La Nina watch which indicates conditions are favorable for La Nina to develop. The chart on the right indicates that there's a
greater than a 70% chance of La Nina developing during the September, October, November period and a greater than an 80% chance of La Nina as we head later into the fall into the winter.
However, a strong La Nina event is unlikely this year with only around a 10% chance of it reaching that level. Therefore, thereafter, a transition to the neutral phase of El Nino's Southern Oscillation is the most likely outcome as we progress into and through next spring. Now, moving from the tropics to closer to home, I'd like to draw your attention to slide 10, which represents our monthly outlook for the month of October. These outlooks represent the probability that the mean temperature or total precipitation for the month will be below, near or above normal. The red and orange shading on the map to the left indicates areas where above normal temperatures are the most likely outcome, while the blue shading indicates areas where below normal temperatures are most likely. Looking at the map of the left above normal temperatures are favored across the southwestern and northeastern parts of the lower 48 states, as well as much of Florida and northern parts of Alaska during the month of October.
This is especially true for the Northeastern contiguous United States and extreme northern Alaska where there's greater than a 50% chance of above normal temperature. The disanticipated warmth is due to a variety of factors such as trends, model guidance, influences from the Madden-Julian oscillation, and below normal sea ice extent in the case of Alaska. On the flip side, parts of southwestern Alaska are favored to have below normal temperatures to impart the transient below normal sea surface temperatures and adjacent waters. Looking at precipitation, the areas of green on the map on the right indicate regions where the total precipitation is favored to be above normal for October, and the brown areas represent regions where below normal precipitation is the most likely scenario. Below normal monthly total precipitation amounts are favored for much of the Great Basin and southwest eastward across the central and southern Rockies and Plains and parts of the central Mississippi Valley. Above normal precipitation is favored along the east coast, much of the northeast and southeast and across the eastern and Central Gulf Coast.
A tilt toward above normal precipitation is also indicated for parts of the Pacific Northwest and for western and northern Alaska. Dynamical model guidance, recent trends and the Madden-Julian oscillation contribute to this outlook. In the case of the southeast and the central and Eastern Gulf Coast regions. The potential for tropical activity also contributes to increased probabilities of above normal precipitation. It should be noted that probabilities in all locations are modest due to the low predictability common during this time of year. Now, looking further ahead to the three-month period from October, November and December, I'd like to bring your attention to slide 11.
During this period, the potential of impacts from La Nina become more apparent, but generally warmer and drier than normal weather is favored across the southern part of the country. Our exception to this favored dryness across the southern tier is the white area across the southeast on the map on the right, where the potential for tropical activity early in the season may counteract the typical dryness associated with the La Nina later in the season. Farther to the north, increased chances for warmer than normal conditions extend north across the eastern contiguous United States consistent with recent trends.
Dryness has generally tried to weather across the northern contiguous United States. So above normal precipitation is favored for much of the northwestern contiguous United States, Great Lakes and Northeast. These areas of favored above normal precipitation is generally corresponding with the anticipated La Nina-based state. Conversely, La Nina tends to favor cold for parts of Alaska. This coupled with below normal sea surface temperatures adjacent to Western Alaska leads to a slight tilt toward colder than drier than normal weather for much of southern Alaska.
Milder than normal weather and above normal precipitation are favored for northwestern parts of the state consistent with recent trends and below normal sea ice extent. Wrapping things up with the drought outlook, I'd like to bring your attention to slide 12. The brown areas in the map indicate where drought is currently ongoing and expected to continue. This includes much of the southwestern United States and parts of the Great Basin eastward across the Southern and Central Plains and northwards to the northern High Plains.
Ongoing impactful drought conditions are also noted across much of the Ohio and Tennessee valleys and much of the central and southern Appalachians. Additionally, with the dry pattern pager for the Central and Southern Plains, drought expansion is likely for these areas represented by the yellow shading. On the flip side, drought improvement or removal is likely for the northwest parts of the great Lakes in northern Ohio Valley, parts of the Southeast and eastern portions of the central Appalachians. That's it from the Climate Prediction Center. Back to you John.
John Bateman:
Thanks so much, Scott. We will now take specific questions from the call participants. Please be sure to identify who you'd like to answer the question if possible. And Lois, could you please remind the call participants how they can ask a question and then please queue up the first question.
Lois (Operator):
Thank you. And ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press a one then zero on your touch-tone phone. You will hear an acknowledgement tone that you've been placed in the queue, and you may remove yourself from queue at any time by repeating the one zero command. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the number. Once again, if you have a question, please press one then zero at this time. And one moment for our first question. We have a question from Rebecca Hersher from NPR. Please go ahead.
Rebecca Hersher:
Hi, thanks so much for doing this. I just had a quick question about the number of consecutive months for global record temperatures? I wanted to make sure I heard Ahira correctly. This is the 15th consecutive month. Was that for land and oceans or just lands?
Ahira Sanchez-Lugo:
Okay, so I'm going to repeat it. It was the 15th and it was for both combined global land and ocean.
Rebecca Hersher:
Great. Thanks so much. And if I could just ask a follow-up.
Ahira Sanchez-Lugo:
Sure.
Rebecca Hersher:
Do we have any sense of why the ocean heat seems to have the record streak seems to have ended even though the streak has not ended for the globe as a whole?
Ahira Sanchez-Lugo:
Okay, so you're asking why the oceans are so warm, correct?
Rebecca Hersher:
Yeah. And why the ocean streak has ended even though the land plus ocean streak has not ended?
Ahira Sanchez-Lugo:
Yes. Okay. Let me double check something really quickly, but it's a combination of both. The climate change, the temperatures continue to increase at the ocean level, and we see that at the land. And right now I want to say if my memory doesn't fail me, the global ocean for the month of August, let me see really quickly. Was second. So even though it wasn't record warm, it was still a year record, so it was still significant. Does that make sense? Yeah.
Rebecca Hersher:
Yeah, great.
Ahira Sanchez-Lugo:
It was second warmest [inaudible 00:22:27] for August. So it was still significantly warm even though it didn't surpass the record that was set last year.
Rebecca Hersher:
Great. That's super helpful. Thank you.
Ahira Sanchez-Lugo:
Does that make sense?
Rebecca Hersher:
Yeah.
Ahira Sanchez-Lugo:
Okay. Thank you.
Lois (Operator):
Thank you. And once again, if you do have a question, please press one and zero. And we have a question from Doyle Rice from USA Today. Please go ahead.
Doyle Rice:
Oh yes, good morning. Thanks for doing this. I had a question. How close are we to 2012 as far as warmest year on record in the US? I know you said that from January to August we're number two behind 2012.
Ahira Sanchez-Lugo:
Yes. So 2012 surpassed... So we are about one degree Celsius, excuse me, one degree Fahrenheit went behind 2012 for the year to date.
Doyle Rice:
Oh, okay. Thank you very much.
Ahira Sanchez-Lugo:
You are welcome.
Lois (Operator):
And again, if there are any questions, please press one then zero. And at this time there's no further questions. Thank you.
John Bateman:
All right. Thanks so much, Lois. If there are no further questions, I'll wrap up the call. First, I'd like to thank all of our speakers for their time and everyone else for participating in this conference call. I'll end by reminding you all to mark your calendar for a few upcoming events. The release of the September, 2024 US Climate Report and Billion Dollar Disaster Summary is scheduled for October 8th. The release of the September, 2024 Global Climate Report is scheduled for October 10th. And in lieu of our monthly media climate call next month, NOAA will host the 20 24 25 US Winter Outlook Media Briefing at 11 A.M. Eastern Time on October 17th. Again, next month in lieu of our monthly media call, NOAA will host the 2024/25 US Winter Outlook Media Briefing at 11 A.M. Eastern on October 17th. A media advisory will be issued and posted online ahead of that event. And lastly, an audio file of this call will be posted on the NOAA.gov media advisory site later today. And if you have any further informational needs, please feel free to email me, John Bateman. My contact information is available at the top of the media advisory. Thanks so much.
Lois (Operator):
Thank you. And that does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for your participation and for using the AT&T TeleConference. You may now disconnect.
WHEN
Thursday, September 19, 11:00 - 11:45 a.m. ET (USA)
WHO
- Ahira Sanchez-Lugo, climatologist, NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information
- Scott Handel, meteorologist, NOAA Climate Prediction Center
WHAT
- Conference Call (slides will accompany call, see below)
- Presentations
- Questions and Answers
HOW
1. Dial into the conference call:
- 877-226-8196 U.S./Canada (toll-free)
- 409-207-6981 International (toll)
- Passcode: 5563530
2. View slides at https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/monthly-report/briefings (available approximately 30 minutes before teleconference).
FOR MORE INFORMATION
NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information climate reports recapping August 2024: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/monthly-report/national/202408 (U.S.)
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/monthly-report/global/202408 (Global)
NOAA Climate Prediction Center outlooks & assessments: https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov
NOAA El Niño/La Niña page: https://www.climate.gov/enso
NOAA Climate Portal: https://www.climate.gov
Upcoming NOAA climate monitoring reports: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/dyk/monthly-releases
Climate, weather, and water affect all life on our ocean planet. NOAA’s mission is to understand and predict our changing environment, from the deep sea to outer space, and to manage and conserve America’s coastal and marine resources.
Media contact
John Bateman, john.jones-bateman@noaa.gov, (202) 424-0929
Related Features //
RESOURCES
Audio file
Transcript
Text Transcript
TRANSCRIPT
NOAA Monthly U.S./Global Climate Media Telecon
September 19, 2024, at 11:00 am EDT via AT&T Teleconference
Hosted by NOAA NESDIS Public Affairs
Media advisory about briefing:
https://www.noaa.gov/media-advisory/noaa-monthly-us-global-climate-report-call-september-19
Lois (Operator):
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the NOAA monthly climate call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode, should you require assistance during the call, please press star then zero and an operator will assist you offline. As a reminder, your conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, John Bateman. Please go ahead.
John Bateman:
All right, thanks so much, Lois. Good morning and thank you for joining this monthly climate update call part of the suite of climate services that NOAA provides to government, business, academia, the media and the public to support informed decision-making. I'm John Bateman with NOAA Communications and I'll be facilitating the call today. If you have additional questions after the conclusion of today's call, my colleague John Leslie and I can both be reached by email at and I will spell it, N-E-S-D-I-S.P-A@N-O-A-A.G-O-V. That's nesdis.pa, as in public affairs, @noaa.gov. Today's update will feature two short presentations followed by an operator assisted question and answer session at the end.
A copy of the presentation our speakers will follow can be downloaded from the link in the media advisory. And with that, I will introduce our speakers. Our first presenter is Ahira Sanchez-Lugo, a climatologist with NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information who will provide a summary of the August 2024 US and global climate report, as well as the latest drought monitor update. Oursecond presenter is Scott Handel, a meteorologist with NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, who will provide the latest El Niño La Niña update, as well as the October 2024 outlook in the US seasonal outlooks for temperature, precipitation and droughts through December. We will now kick off this media briefing with Ahira from NOAA NCEI.
Ahira Sanchez-Lugo:
Thank you, John, and good morning everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I'm going to go ahead and start on slide two to look at the global temperatures for August 2024. As you can see from both maps, during the month we saw that warmer than average conditions were present across much of the world's surface with record warm temperatures that were present across parts of Europe, Africa, the Caribbean region, parts of the Atlantic Ocean, Asia, Australia and Antarctica, as well as areas of the Indian Ocean and parts of the Western Pacific Ocean and the Southern Ocean. There were some locations that did experience near to cooler than average temperatures during the month, and these areas included parts of the Russian Far East and Western Alaska, much of Argentina and Chile and parts of Central Africa, as well as parts of Asia. Averaged as a whole, the global service temperature for August 2024 was 1.27 degrees Celsius or 2.29 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average.
This value was the warmest for August in NOAA's records that extend back to 1850 for a total of 175 years. And this value was just 0.01 degrees Celsius or 0.02 degrees Fahrenheit above the previous record that was set last year in 2023. This month also marked the 15th consecutive month of record high global temperatures. Looking at continental averages, each continent had eight temperature anomaly for the month of August that ranked among the top six warmest August. The continents of Europe and Oceania had their warmest August on record. Moving now to slide number three to look at the seasonal temperature for the globe. The global surface temperature for the three-month period of June through August was 1.24 degrees Celsius or 2.23 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average, and this was the warmest June through August period since NOAA's records extend back to 1850. Again, this value surpassed the previous record that was set only last year in 2023.
The June through August period was warmer than average across much of the globe. As you can see from the map, record high temperatures were present across parts of each continent and ocean with near to cooler and average conditions that were limited to parts of the Russian Far East, western Alaska, eastern Antarctica, northern and southern parts of the Atlantic Ocean and southeastern parts of the Pacific Ocean. The month of August marked the end of the Northern Hemisphere meteorological summer and the Southern Hemisphere meteorological winter. And the Northern Hemisphere had its warmest summer on record. The Southern Hemisphere had its warmest winter on record. Both hemispheres surpassed the previous record that was again set last in 2023.
Regionally, each continent had a [inaudible 00:05:25] temperature but not ranked among the warmest June through August period. Europe and Asia [inaudible 00:05:34] having their warm [inaudible 00:05:36] through August period on [inaudible 00:05:38] move to slide number four to look at the state temperatures. The global surface temperature for the period of January through August was the highest on record at 1.28 degrees Celsius or 2.30 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average. And this value surpassed the previous record that was set back in 2016. During the first eight months of the year, they were characterized by warmer than average conditions across much of the globe with record warm temperatures engulfing much of the Atlantic Ocean Central America, the northern half of South America, Europe, Central Africa, the North Indian Ocean, the Western Pacific Ocean, and across parts of Asia, Australia and North America.
Regionally, South America, Europe and Africa had their warmest January through August period while North America and Oceania had their second warmest. There were some areas that did experience near to cooler than average conditions during the first eight months of the year, and these areas included parts of the southeastern Greenland and its surrounding ocean, the southern tip of South America and the southeastern Pacific Ocean and Eastern Antarctica.
Looking ahead, according to our statistical analysis, the year 2024 is virtually certain to rank among the five warmest years on record, and excuse me, it has over 95% chance of ranking as the warmest year on record. Moving now to slide number five to look at the US for the month of August. During August 2024, temperatures were above average across the Western and Northeastern contiguous US. Meanwhile, near statewide average temperatures were observed from North Dakota to the Carolina. Averaged as a whole, the US had an August temperature of 74 degrees Fahrenheit and this is 1.9 degrees Fahrenheit above average. This value tied with August of 1998 as the 15th warmest August in 130 year record. In terms of statewide averages, five states had a top 10 warm August with Florida having its second-warmest August on record and Texas and New Mexico having their third-warmest August. However, no state had a statewide average temperature that ranked among the 10 coldest August.
In terms of precipitation for the month, it varied across the US. We did see above average precipitation along the East Coast, across the central Rockies, the northern tier states, and from Northern California to Washington state. While below average conditions were present across much of the south from the southern California coast to the Central Gulf Coast extending into the Ohio Valley. The states of Alabama and Mississippi had their driest August on record and Tennessee had its second-driest August. Meanwhile, New York had its fourth-wettest August on record. During the month of August. We did see some tropical systems that did impact the US and its territories briefly. Some of these included Debby
that made landfall as a category one hurricane early and during the month in northwestern Florida and then made a second landfall as a tropical storm in South Carolina on August 8th. The storm brought heavy rains, flooding and strong winds to parts of the southeast.
We had in Puerto Rico tropical storm Ernesto which brought significant flooding and caused nearly half of the island to lose power due to its strong winds during August 13th through 14th. Then we had Hurricane Hone that impacted Hawaii at the end of the month causing flooding and power outages. Moving now to slide number six to look at the seasonal temperatures for the US. The summer average temperature for the contiguous US was 73.8 degrees Fahrenheit, and this value is 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit above average, and this ranked as the fourth-warmest summer in the 130-year record. Currently, the summers of 1936 and 2021 tie as the warmest summer on record for the US followed by the summer of 2022. Temperatures were above average across much of the Western US and from the Gulf Coast to the northeast. The states of Arizona, California, Florida, Maine and New Hampshire had their warmest summer on record.
An additional 20 states had a statewide average temperature that ranked among the 10 warmest summers on record. However, no state had a statewide average temperature that ranked among the 10 coldest summers on record. The summer precipitation for the contiguous US was near average during the three-month season at 8.30 inches. We saw above average precipitation across portions of the upper Midwest and in parts of the northeast, southeast Gulf coast and central Rockies. The state of Michigan saw its fifth-wettest summer on record while West Virginia had its fifth drive summer on record. Other areas that had below average conditions included the Ohio Valley to the Gulf Coast from the northern Rockies to California and across portions of the Central and Southern Plains. Moving on to slide number seven to look at the year to date. For the January through August period, the average US, the contiguous US average temperature was 56.9 degrees Fahrenheit or three degrees Fahrenheit above average, and this ranked as the second-warmest January through August period on record. Only the January through August period of 2012 was warmer.
Temperatures were above average across nearly all of the contiguous US, with the states of New Hampshire Vermont and West Virginia having their warmest January through August period. And then we had an additional 25 states that had a top five warmest year to date period. The year to date precipitation total for the contiguous US was its wettest in the 130-year record with a total of 22.93 inches. Above average precipitation was observed across a large portion of the upper Midwest. The Northeast and Deep South, Rhode Island, Connecticut both had their second-wettest January through August period and nine additional states ranked among their top 10 wettest year to date. Precipitation was below average across parts of the Northwest, Northern Plains and Central Appalachians and Western Texas during this eight-month period. No states ranked among the 10 driest year-to-date period on record. Moving into slide eight to look at current drought conditions across the US. As of today, about 36% of the continental US was in some type of drought. This is about 12 percentage points more than a month ago, and during this drought, drought was present across parts of the Western high Plains, southern Midwest and Southeastern regions, and there were some drought conditions that did improve during the last month across parts of northern parts of the Western region and across parts of the southern region. However, drought did deteriorate across parts of the southern parts of the Western region and across the Midwest and the Southeastern regions. Outside of the contiguous US, moderate to severe drought was present across parts of Hawaii, while Alaska had abnormally dry conditions across parts of its panhandle. And Puerto Rico remains drought-free. That is all that I have for today. I will now turn it over to CPC's Scott Handel. Thank you.
Scott Handel:
Thank you Ahira, and good morning everybody. This is Scott Handel, meteorologist from the National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center. I'm going to start off by bringing your attention to slide nine of the presentation with the current observations and forecast for the El Nino Southern Oscillation. The figure on the left shows the current sea surface temperature anomalies for the tropical Pacific. The horizontal black line in the center represents the equator. The blue shading represents areas where sea surface temperatures are below normal and the orange and red areas correspond to areas where sea surface temperatures are above normal. As you can see, there's a lot of light blue and' light orange near the center of the map, indicating that on average sea surface temperature anomalies are currently weak near the equator with a tilt toward below normal temperatures in the eastern and central Pacific and above normal in the western Pacific.
Sea surface temperatures in what's called the Nino 3.4 region of the tropical Pacific are roughly 0.2 degrees Celsius below normal, which puts us into neutral territory, which means that we are currently not in an El Nino or a La Nina state. However, sea surface temperature anomalies are slowly becoming more negative, and once these sea surface temperatures reach 0.5 degrees Celsius below normal, that would put us in La Nina territory. Therefore, looking into the future, an emergence of La Nina is the most likely scenario as we head into the fall and winter. And we are currently in a La Nina watch which indicates conditions are favorable for La Nina to develop. The chart on the right indicates that there's a
greater than a 70% chance of La Nina developing during the September, October, November period and a greater than an 80% chance of La Nina as we head later into the fall into the winter.
However, a strong La Nina event is unlikely this year with only around a 10% chance of it reaching that level. Therefore, thereafter, a transition to the neutral phase of El Nino's Southern Oscillation is the most likely outcome as we progress into and through next spring. Now, moving from the tropics to closer to home, I'd like to draw your attention to slide 10, which represents our monthly outlook for the month of October. These outlooks represent the probability that the mean temperature or total precipitation for the month will be below, near or above normal. The red and orange shading on the map to the left indicates areas where above normal temperatures are the most likely outcome, while the blue shading indicates areas where below normal temperatures are most likely. Looking at the map of the left above normal temperatures are favored across the southwestern and northeastern parts of the lower 48 states, as well as much of Florida and northern parts of Alaska during the month of October.
This is especially true for the Northeastern contiguous United States and extreme northern Alaska where there's greater than a 50% chance of above normal temperature. The disanticipated warmth is due to a variety of factors such as trends, model guidance, influences from the Madden-Julian oscillation, and below normal sea ice extent in the case of Alaska. On the flip side, parts of southwestern Alaska are favored to have below normal temperatures to impart the transient below normal sea surface temperatures and adjacent waters. Looking at precipitation, the areas of green on the map on the right indicate regions where the total precipitation is favored to be above normal for October, and the brown areas represent regions where below normal precipitation is the most likely scenario. Below normal monthly total precipitation amounts are favored for much of the Great Basin and southwest eastward across the central and southern Rockies and Plains and parts of the central Mississippi Valley. Above normal precipitation is favored along the east coast, much of the northeast and southeast and across the eastern and Central Gulf Coast.
A tilt toward above normal precipitation is also indicated for parts of the Pacific Northwest and for western and northern Alaska. Dynamical model guidance, recent trends and the Madden-Julian oscillation contribute to this outlook. In the case of the southeast and the central and Eastern Gulf Coast regions. The potential for tropical activity also contributes to increased probabilities of above normal precipitation. It should be noted that probabilities in all locations are modest due to the low predictability common during this time of year. Now, looking further ahead to the three-month period from October, November and December, I'd like to bring your attention to slide 11.
During this period, the potential of impacts from La Nina become more apparent, but generally warmer and drier than normal weather is favored across the southern part of the country. Our exception to this favored dryness across the southern tier is the white area across the southeast on the map on the right, where the potential for tropical activity early in the season may counteract the typical dryness associated with the La Nina later in the season. Farther to the north, increased chances for warmer than normal conditions extend north across the eastern contiguous United States consistent with recent trends.
Dryness has generally tried to weather across the northern contiguous United States. So above normal precipitation is favored for much of the northwestern contiguous United States, Great Lakes and Northeast. These areas of favored above normal precipitation is generally corresponding with the anticipated La Nina-based state. Conversely, La Nina tends to favor cold for parts of Alaska. This coupled with below normal sea surface temperatures adjacent to Western Alaska leads to a slight tilt toward colder than drier than normal weather for much of southern Alaska.
Milder than normal weather and above normal precipitation are favored for northwestern parts of the state consistent with recent trends and below normal sea ice extent. Wrapping things up with the drought outlook, I'd like to bring your attention to slide 12. The brown areas in the map indicate where drought is currently ongoing and expected to continue. This includes much of the southwestern United States and parts of the Great Basin eastward across the Southern and Central Plains and northwards to the northern High Plains.
Ongoing impactful drought conditions are also noted across much of the Ohio and Tennessee valleys and much of the central and southern Appalachians. Additionally, with the dry pattern pager for the Central and Southern Plains, drought expansion is likely for these areas represented by the yellow shading. On the flip side, drought improvement or removal is likely for the northwest parts of the great Lakes in northern Ohio Valley, parts of the Southeast and eastern portions of the central Appalachians. That's it from the Climate Prediction Center. Back to you John.
John Bateman:
Thanks so much, Scott. We will now take specific questions from the call participants. Please be sure to identify who you'd like to answer the question if possible. And Lois, could you please remind the call participants how they can ask a question and then please queue up the first question.
Lois (Operator):
Thank you. And ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press a one then zero on your touch-tone phone. You will hear an acknowledgement tone that you've been placed in the queue, and you may remove yourself from queue at any time by repeating the one zero command. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the number. Once again, if you have a question, please press one then zero at this time. And one moment for our first question. We have a question from Rebecca Hersher from NPR. Please go ahead.
Rebecca Hersher:
Hi, thanks so much for doing this. I just had a quick question about the number of consecutive months for global record temperatures? I wanted to make sure I heard Ahira correctly. This is the 15th consecutive month. Was that for land and oceans or just lands?
Ahira Sanchez-Lugo:
Okay, so I'm going to repeat it. It was the 15th and it was for both combined global land and ocean.
Rebecca Hersher:
Great. Thanks so much. And if I could just ask a follow-up.
Ahira Sanchez-Lugo:
Sure.
Rebecca Hersher:
Do we have any sense of why the ocean heat seems to have the record streak seems to have ended even though the streak has not ended for the globe as a whole?
Ahira Sanchez-Lugo:
Okay, so you're asking why the oceans are so warm, correct?
Rebecca Hersher:
Yeah. And why the ocean streak has ended even though the land plus ocean streak has not ended?
Ahira Sanchez-Lugo:
Yes. Okay. Let me double check something really quickly, but it's a combination of both. The climate change, the temperatures continue to increase at the ocean level, and we see that at the land. And right now I want to say if my memory doesn't fail me, the global ocean for the month of August, let me see really quickly. Was second. So even though it wasn't record warm, it was still a year record, so it was still significant. Does that make sense? Yeah.
Rebecca Hersher:
Yeah, great.
Ahira Sanchez-Lugo:
It was second warmest [inaudible 00:22:27] for August. So it was still significantly warm even though it didn't surpass the record that was set last year.
Rebecca Hersher:
Great. That's super helpful. Thank you.
Ahira Sanchez-Lugo:
Does that make sense?
Rebecca Hersher:
Yeah.
Ahira Sanchez-Lugo:
Okay. Thank you.
Lois (Operator):
Thank you. And once again, if you do have a question, please press one and zero. And we have a question from Doyle Rice from USA Today. Please go ahead.
Doyle Rice:
Oh yes, good morning. Thanks for doing this. I had a question. How close are we to 2012 as far as warmest year on record in the US? I know you said that from January to August we're number two behind 2012.
Ahira Sanchez-Lugo:
Yes. So 2012 surpassed... So we are about one degree Celsius, excuse me, one degree Fahrenheit went behind 2012 for the year to date.
Doyle Rice:
Oh, okay. Thank you very much.
Ahira Sanchez-Lugo:
You are welcome.
Lois (Operator):
And again, if there are any questions, please press one then zero. And at this time there's no further questions. Thank you.
John Bateman:
All right. Thanks so much, Lois. If there are no further questions, I'll wrap up the call. First, I'd like to thank all of our speakers for their time and everyone else for participating in this conference call. I'll end by reminding you all to mark your calendar for a few upcoming events. The release of the September, 2024 US Climate Report and Billion Dollar Disaster Summary is scheduled for October 8th. The release of the September, 2024 Global Climate Report is scheduled for October 10th. And in lieu of our monthly media climate call next month, NOAA will host the 20 24 25 US Winter Outlook Media Briefing at 11 A.M. Eastern Time on October 17th. Again, next month in lieu of our monthly media call, NOAA will host the 2024/25 US Winter Outlook Media Briefing at 11 A.M. Eastern on October 17th. A media advisory will be issued and posted online ahead of that event. And lastly, an audio file of this call will be posted on the NOAA.gov media advisory site later today. And if you have any further informational needs, please feel free to email me, John Bateman. My contact information is available at the top of the media advisory. Thanks so much.
Lois (Operator):
Thank you. And that does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for your participation and for using the AT&T TeleConference. You may now disconnect.