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October 2011 Intermountain West Climate Summary

Summary

Temperature — Temperatures for September were warmer than average across nearly all of the region.
Precipitation — September was generally drier than average across the region, and especially dry in Wyoming, northern Utah, and southeastern Colorado.
ENSO — After a brief hiatus this summer, La Niña conditions have re-emerged and are expected to persist through the winter season.
Climate Outlooks — Consistent with the La Niña conditions, in the late fall and winter seasons, the CPC seasonal outlooks call for some enhanced risk of warmer and drier conditions in the extreme southern portions of our region, and of wetter conditions in the northern portions.

News

Do you need information about the socioeconomic impacts of climate variability and climate change? Let us know!

The WWA-funded “Socioeconomic Impacts and Adaptation Strategies Clearinghouse” project is compiling existing research and studies about the social and economic impacts of and adaptations to climate variability and climate change, relevant to the WWA region (Colorado, Utah and Wyoming), into an online, searchable database. The purpose of the project is to provide useful, readily accessible socioeconomic impacts information to decision makers as they prepare to adapt to climate variability and change. Climate-induced socioeconomic impacts could include:
• The cost of acquiring new water supplies due to reduced yield from existing portfolios
• Reduction in recreation visits due to low streamflows, reduced snowpack, and/or wildfires
• Decreases in agricultural productivity during drought

Please let us know which social and economic impacts you need more information about as you plan for climate variability and change. If published research in that area exists, we will add it to the database. If it doesn’t, we will add it to a roster of research needs and explore options for funding that research. Contact Bobbie Klein at bklein@colorado.edu.



Utah Bark Beetles and Watersheds Workshop -- December 1, Salt Lake City

We invite our IWCS readers in Utah to join the Western Water Assessment (WWA) and the USDA Forest Service Intermountain Region for an all-day science workshop exploring the water-related impacts of bark beetle infestations in Utah and the Rocky Mountain West. Beetle-impacts researchers from WWA, the University of Colorado, and the USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station will present their findings. Researchers, water managers, forest managers, and other decision-makers are encouraged to attend. Please RSVP to Tim Bardsley (wwa.bardsley@gmail.com) by November 23, and specify if you will be attending in Salt Lake City or via videoconference. Space is limited. For more information, go to the WWA Beetles, Water, and Climate web page (http://wwa.colorado.edu/ecology/beetle/index.html). (Note: We will also have a 3rd annual beetle-water science symposium in spring 2012 in Boulder, CO--look for announcements after the new year.)



NIDIS Upper Colorado Pilot activities extended, including CCC Upper Colorado drought webinars

The National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) program office has announced that although the NIDIS Upper Colorado Pilot program has formally ended, some activities which were initiated during the pilot will continue. In particular, the CSU Colorado Climate Center has been funded for three years to continue their weekly-to-monthly (depending on time of year) half-hour webinars that present the status of precipitation, snowpack, streamflow, water demand, and drought indices for the upper Upper Colorado basin. Many of the graphics and updates cover the entire three-state region of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. To register for the next webinar, go to http://ccc.atmos.colostate.edu/drought_webinar_registration.php. The webinars are archived shortly after presentation at http://ccc.atmos.colostate.edu/drought_webinar.php.



Changes in this month's IWCS

We usually release the IWCS around the 25th of the month, shortly after NOAA CPC posts its monthly and seasonal climate outlooks on the 3rd Thursday of the month. However, this means that the information released on or about the 1st of the month (previous month's temperature and precipitation, streamflow forecasts, basinwide snowpack maps) is almost four weeks old by the time the IWCS comes out.
We are experimenting this month with an earlier release (by about two weeks) of the IWCS, which will make the first-of-the-month information more timely. Conversely, the monthly and seasonal CPC outlooks are now less timely, having been released the 3rd Thursday of the previous month. Please let us know if you prefer one release date over the other.

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