Tucson this week continues to fail at shaking off record-breaking heat.
The record high for any Oct. 20 in Tucson is 97 degrees, which was set in 2003. Itβs expected to reach 101 degrees here on Friday.
And Tucsonβs hottest Oct. 21 on record is 96 degrees, set in 2016. Itβs expected to be 97 degrees here on Saturday.
It seems like a good time to look ahead at what winter might bring to the Old Pueblo.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released its U.S. winter outlook Thursday.
Its winter outlook for southern Arizona: uncertain.
A wetter-than-normal winter for the southern United States, while the northern half of the country can expect a warmer-than-normal season, NOAA predicts. Itβll be the first El NiΓ±o to affect southern Arizona in three years, forecasters say.
NOAA on Thursday placed βequal chancesβ for both temperature and precipitation in southern Arizona.
That means national forecasters were unable Thursday to pinpoint whether or not southern Arizona should expect above-, below-, or near-normal temperature and precipitation patterns from December through February. Essentially, NOAA forecasters gave more rain here than usual a 33 percent chance of happening this winter and less rain here 33 percent chance of happening.
And, the chance for a typical winter here for rain and temperature? Yup, 33 percent.
Thereβs a level of uncertainty when predicting winter weather for the western United States, Jon Gottschalk, chief of NOAAβs operational prediction branch, said Thursday.
βTypically, you tend to have a wetter signal across parts of Arizona and New Mexico ... that is often what we forecast, but other indications and information we utilized (this year), we did not see that strong enough signal that we have in the past,β Gottschalk said. βOur outlook right now is pretty uncertain for those states, and thatβs why theyβre forecasted equal chances.β
Weather models are consistent with their own predictions, or lack thereof, said Ken Drozd, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Tucson.
βTypically, in the cases that weβve had El NiΓ±oβs in the past, more of them have been wetter-than-normal than not,β he said. βThereβs a lot of uncertainty, and even more than in previous years.β
βWe have a lot more global climate models available now ... While those have showed improvement over the years, (the NOAA) is getting a variety of different solutions from models (but) thereβs no real consensus among any of those models, so they donβt really have anything to hang their hat on, so to speak,β Drozd said.
The El NiΓ±o-Southern Oscillation is a βrecurring climate pattern involving changes in the temperatureβ of central and eastern tropical waters of the Pacific.
During an El NiΓ±o, the National Weather Service says, warming of the Pacificβs surface creates reduced rainfall over Indonesia while rainfall increases over the ocean. The typical east-to-west surface winds instead weaken, or in some instances reverse their direction altogether. This creates a wet-and-warm weather pattern which sweeps over the southern portion of the United States, giving us above-normal rainfall.
During the last El NiΓ±o to develop here in the winter of 2018-2019, Tucson International Airport β where Tucsonβs official rain total is measured β received 4.62 inches of winter rain, Drozd says. The normal amount of rainfall in the period from December through February here is 2.64 inches, he said.
Drought conditions are expected to persist in southern and southeast Arizona through January, NOAAβs winter outlook said.