Map snapshot depicting the predicted relative anomalousness of surface temperatures from the ECMWF ensemble over the Western U.S. in about a week from now. A a huge region of bright orange and red colors (depicting extremely high warm temperature anomalies) is centered right in the middle of the map, and covers essentially the entire region.

Lots of buzz online about an upcoming major March heatwave for the American SW & California. And in this case, it does indeed appear increasingly likely than an extremely anomalous and even record-breaking heatwave may envelop much of the SW about a week from now.

Map of US with purple and blue icons over central US indicating severe weather billion dollar disaster events in 2025 and one fire in LA.

The Billion Dollar Weather and Climate Disaster dataset is back and now at @climatecentral.org!

Through the first half of 2025, there were 14 separate billion-dollar weather and climate disasters across the United States, costing $101.4 billion. 1/2
www.climatecentral.org/climate-serv...

you too nkosi!!

⚠️new(-ish) paper in Journal of Climate⚠️ i evaluated CMIP6 models' Pacific decadal SST variability and teleconnections... big takeaway is that models under-simulate temporal PDO/IPO variability on decadal timescales, likely affecting precip trends in the Southwest
journals.ametsoc.org/view/journal...

screenshot of a NOAA webpage. the main text says: FACTS has been Discontinued

this can't be good right?

hi bluesky~ my name is tess, and i'm a climate scientist studying drought, fire, and climate variability and change! i recently defended my PhD on the climate dynamics that drive forest fire in the Western US at @lamont.columbia.edu and started as an NPP fellow at NASA GISS. excited to be here ❤