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The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) team provides food insecurity outlooks for several developing countries in Africa, central Asia, and Central America. This study describes development of a new global reference evapotranspiration (ET0) seasonal reforecast and skill evaluation with a particular emphasis on the potential use of this dataset by FEWS NET to support food insecurity early warning. The ET0 reforecasts span the 1982-2009 period and are calculated following the American Society for Civil Engineers formulation of the Penman-Monteith method driven by seasonal climate forecasts of monthly mean temperature, humidity, wind speed, and solar radiation from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction CFSv2 model and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration GEOS-5 model. The skill evaluation, using deterministic and probabilistic scores, focuses on the December-February (DJF), March-May (MAM), June-August (JJA), and September-November seasons. The results indicate that ET0 forecasts are a promising tool for early warning of drought and food insecurity. Globally, the regions where forecasts are most skillful (correlation > 0.35 at leads of 2 months) include the western United States, northern parts of South America, parts of the Sahel region, and southern Africa. The FEWS NET regions where forecasts are most skillful (correlation > 0.35 at lead 3) include northern sub-Saharan Africa (DJF; dry season), Central America (DJF; dry season), parts of East Africa (JJA; wet season), southern Africa (JJA; dry season), and central Asia (MAM; wet season). A case study over parts of East Africa for the JJA season shows that ET0 forecasts in combination with the precipitation forecasts would have provided early warning of recent severe drought events (e.g., in 2002, 2004, 2009) that contributed to substantial food insecurity in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Predictions of drought onset and termination at subseasonal (from 2 weeks to 1 month) lead times could provide a foundation for more effective and proactive drought management. We used reforecasts archived in NOAA’s Subseasonal Experiment (SubX) to force the Noah Multiparameterization (Noah-MP), which produced forecasts of soil moisture from which we identified drought levels D0–D4. We evaluated forecast skill of major and more modest droughts, with leads from 1 to 4 weeks, and with particular attention to drought termination and onset. We find usable drought termination and onset forecast skill at leads 1 and 2 weeks for major D0–D2 droughts and limited skill at week 3 for major D0–D1 droughts, with essentially no skill at week 4 regardless of drought severity. Furthermore, for both major and more modest droughts, we find limited skill or no skill for D3–D4 droughts. We find that skill is generally higher for drought termination than for onset for all drought events. We also find that drought prediction skill generally decreases from north to south for all drought events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The implementation of a multimodel drought monitoring system is described, which provides near-real-time estimates of surface moisture storage for the global land areas between 50°S and 50°N with a time lag of about 1 day. Near-real-time forcings are derived from satellite-based precipitation estimates and modeled air temperatures. The system distinguishes itself from other operational systems in that it uses multiple land surface models (Variable Infiltration Capacity, Noah, and Sacramento) to simulate surface moisture storage, which are then combined to derive a multimodel estimate of drought. A comparison of the results with other historic and current drought estimates demonstrates that near-real-time nowcasting of global drought conditions based on satellite and model forcings is entirely feasible. However, challenges remain because hydrological droughts are inherently defined in the context of a long-term climatology. Changes in observing platforms can be misinterpreted as droughts (or as excessively wet periods). This problem cannot simply be addressed through the addition of more observations or through the development of new observing platforms. Instead, it will require careful (re)construction of long-term records that are updated in near-real time in a consistent manner so that changes in surface meteorological forcings reflect actual conditions rather than changes in methods or sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A drought monitoring system (DMS) can help to detect and characterize drought conditions and reduce adverse drought impacts. The authors evaluate how a DMS for Washington State, based on a land surface model (LSM), would perform. The LSM represents current soil moisture (SM), snow water equivalent (SWE), and runoff over the state. The DMS incorporates the standardized precipitation index (SPI), standardized runoff index (SRI), and soil moisture percentile (SMP) taken from the LSM. Four historical drought events (1976--77, 1987--89, 2000--01, and 2004--05) are constructed using DMS indicators of SPI/SRI-3, SPI/SRI-6, SPI/SRI-12, SPI/SRI-24, SPI/SRI-36, and SMP, with monthly updates, in each of the state''s 62 Water Resource Inventory Areas (WRIAs). The authors also compare drought triggers based on DMS indicators with the evolution of drought conditions and management decisions during the four droughts. The results show that the DMS would have detected the onset and recovery of drought conditions, in many cases, up to four months before state declarations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The state of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is critical for seasonal climate forecasts, but recent events diverged substantially from expectations in many regions, including sub-Saharan Africa where seasonal forecasts are critical tools for addressing food security. Here, we evaluate 39 years (1982–2020) of data on hydroclimate, leaf area index, and maize yields to investigate the strength of ENSO teleconnections in southern and East Africa. Teleconnections to precipitation, soil moisture, and leaf area index are generally stronger during ENSO phases that cause drought conditions (El Niño in southern Africa and La Niña in East Africa), with seasonality that aligns well with the maize growing seasons. Within maize growing areas, however, ENSO teleconnections to hydroclimate and vegetation are generally weaker compared to the broader geographic regions, especially in East Africa. There is also little evidence that the magnitude of the ENSO event affects the hydroclimate or vegetation response in these maize regions. Maize yields in Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, and Zimbabwe all correlate significantly with hydroclimate and leaf area index, with South Africa and Zimbabwe showing the strongest and most consistent yield responses to ENSO events. Our results highlight the chain of causality from El Niño and La Niña forcing of regional anomalies in hydroclimate to vegetation health and maize yields in southern and East Africa. The large spread across individual ENSO events, however, underscores the limitations of this climate mode for seasonal climate prediction in the region, and the importance of finding additional sources of skill for improving climate and yield forecasts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]