specifically work with their users to improve products and services.
Enhanced Monitoring, Coordination, and Outreach—Weekly Webinar/ Climate Water Assessments The Colorado Climate Center, with the help of the NIDIS program office, first tested and subsequently operationalized a weekly update cycle. This activity directly addresses the need expressed by many stakeholders in 2009 for “more timely and locally interpreted information.” We begin each week by summarizing recent precipitation, snowpack changes, streamflow, reservoir storage, temperatures, and evaporation rates. U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) hydrologists and NRCS Snow Survey sometimes assist in this effort. National Weather Service meteorologists from forecast offices in and near the Upper Colorado
River Basin pitch in with forecast information. Becky Smith (Ph.D. student and Drought Coordinator for the project) then assembles a short summary report that is circulated to a few dozen information providers within the basin by approximately noon each Tuesday. Input is gathered and then by Tuesday afternoon, a set of recommendations for updating the USDM maps for our region is sent to the USDM weekly author and then distributed to a list of several hundred subscribers. From mid January to mid summer, we also conduct weekly webinars summarizing this information for online participants. Based on the experience of 2012, this weekly update process allowed us to closely track and assess developing extreme drought conditions. Unlike 2002 where there was a sense of being caught by surprise, in 2012 there was no doubt where and when conditions were deteriorating (Figure 3 Lake
Powell measurements show 2002 drought and recovery). At the end of this article are instructions on how to access and/or participate in this weekly monitoring process.
Seasonal Prediction As we get better with other aspects of drought monitoring and information delivery, the area that now stands out is the extreme interest in accurate long-range prediction. NOAA has recently organized a NOAA Drought Task Force specifically to coordinate ongoing drought prediction activities. Here in the Upper Colorado River Basin, Klaus Wolter with the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado is working with NIDIS and the Upper Colorado River Basin Drought Early Warning System providing locally specific and annotated seasonal forecasts updated several times a year. These forecasts are integrated within our weekly webinar series, and often attract much higher attendance.
Challenges Now that we are several years into the development and implementation of a Drought Early Warning System, some specific challenges include the following.
Figure 2. NRCS SNOTEL stations and their precipitation percentile rankings from October 1, 2011 - September 24 2012. Percentile rankings allow us to apply information directly to the U.S. Drought Monitor maps.
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• Maintaining high quality monitoring of hydrometeorological processes in the face of shrinking budgets is difficult. We’ve made progress in the past few years, but holding this ground may not be easy. For example,
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