"Researchers are developing ways to predict how much land will burn out West and where ocean heat waves will occur up to a year in advance".
"In the parched southwestern United States, few forecasts are as important as the future height of Lake Mead, which tells federal authorities how much water to release to the 20 million people living downstream of the giant reservoir. This year, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is testing out a new tool it hopes will make those projections a little better: A model that can predict — months in advance — the summer rainfall associated with the North American Monsoon.
The ability to forecast monsoon rains that far in advance has long eluded meteorologists. But if the new approach proves successful, the bureau believes it could lead to better summer projections of Lake Mead’s January water level — a key metric the agency uses to plan water releases during the coming year. With water levels in Lake Mead running a record low and the bureau implementing its first-ever water shortage declaration in 2022, even small improvements in these reservoir projections can make a difference.
The monsoon forecasting tool, detailed in a recent study published in the journal Advancing Earth, Space and Science, is one of several emerging efforts by researchers to predict key weather patterns, or weather-related hazards, months ahead of time. Other research teams are also rolling out experimental, long-range forecasts that can predict how many acres will burn during an upcoming wildfire season and where ocean heat waves will occur up to a year in advance, providing more explicit and comprehensive information than existing tools. Collectively, these new tools are pushing the boundaries of seasonal forecasting, a realm of weather forecasting that has traditionally focused on predicting patterns in temperature and rainfall."
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