While it will never be a perfect method of long range forecasting, looking into the past to see into the future can be of use. The maps below show the potential analog years (years from the past) that match up closely with what we may see from March – September of this year. We will look at the temperature and precipitation anomalies averaged out of the years 1951, 1965, 1972, 1997, 2009, 2018, 2023. Why those years? Because those are the years that most closely mimic the change from La Niña to El Niño that we will likely go through this year.

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

While the above forecast information offers no guarantees, those seven years do offer a good bit of data to draw from. I know a lot of us remember the summer of 2023 when it was so hot and so dry, after a wet spring. There are a lot of moving parts this year, and the change to El Niño is just one of them. However, it is an important one that warrants looking into the past to possibly see where we go into the future…