Forecasters favor drought relief across much of the South, Southeast and Northeast this month

The Climate Prediction Center’s drought outlook for October favors improvement or outright removal of drought across much of the South, the Southeast and the Northeast, along with the southern Four Corners and the southern and eastern Plains. Forecaster Richard Tinker built the assessment on the U.S. Drought Monitor map valid Sept. 22 and a stretch of heavy rain that arrived in early October. The month is now more than half over, which makes it possible to see how the first two weeks compare with the forecast.

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The answer so far is mixed, with a clear split between regions where the rain delivered and regions where it did not.

The outlook region by region

In the South, the monthly drought outlook discussion expects heavy early-October rain to reverse drought that had intensified over recent months. October favors above-normal precipitation, with odds above 60 percent from central Texas to the Rio Grande and across southern Louisiana, and the forecast calls for improvement or removal in all current drought areas. Confidence is high, though only moderate over much of Tennessee. The drivers it cites include a late-season monsoon surge, tropical systems and waves in the Pacific and Caribbean, and the breakdown of a mid-level ridge over the South.

The Southeast gets the same call. Heavy rain is expected south of Virginia, with surplus October rain favored from most of North Carolina southward, so improvement or removal is forecast there with high confidence, dropping to medium in the northernmost sections.

The Northeast carries the lowest confidence of the three. Drought coverage there had been shrinking slowly, and the outlook favors above-normal rain across New England in the second week of October, with improvement or removal forecast by month’s end, helped by cooler temperatures and lower seasonal water demand. The discussion rates its confidence low for the region.

October’s first two weeks of rain

The USDA’s Weekly Weather and Crop Bulletin for Sept. 27 to Oct. 3 shows rain falling where the outlook wanted it. Victoria, Texas, collected 5.26 inches and Waco 3.21 inches, while Jacksonville, Florida, recorded 3.77 inches and Pensacola 3.52 inches. Islip, New York, finished its wettest September on record at 8.76 inches. The same bulletin also found places left out: Shreveport and Baton Rouge recorded no measurable rain, and dry conditions dominated the mid-Atlantic.

The Drought Monitor’s national summary valid Oct. 13, written by Lindsay Johnson of the High Plains Regional Climate Center and Anthony Artusa of the Climate Prediction Center, confirms the pattern. In the Southeast, drought improved substantially after Hurricane Isaias brought totals above 12 inches to parts of the Florida Panhandle and southern Alabama, improvements covered Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama and Florida, and the most severe category was removed in western and central North Carolina.

The South was less cooperative. Localized improvements occurred in parts of Texas, Mississippi and Tennessee, but drought deteriorated across the lower Mississippi Valley, and exceptional drought expanded across Arkansas and northern Louisiana. The summary links that to record-warm September temperatures in several states and says Isaias largely missed the region. In the Northeast the Mid-Atlantic and parts of southern New England improved, while severe drought expanded in northern Maine and moderate drought spread in northern Vermont.

Local forecast offices and where drought is expected to persist

National Weather Service offices in the Southwest echo the improvement call. The El Paso office, in its Oct. 3 drought statement, said drought improved across parts of south-central New Mexico and far west Texas over the previous four weeks and that recent heavy rain “will improve drought conditions considerably in the coming weeks,” with some locations possibly seeing drought removed entirely. The Pueblo, Colorado, office wrote in its Oct. 8 statement that the Climate Prediction Center’s outlook supports continued improvement and an eventual end to drought across south-central and southeast Colorado, even as severe to exceptional drought lingers in the Upper Rio Grande and San Luis Valley.

Beyond the three regions named above, the discussion expects improvement from the central Great Lakes southward and in parts of the Upper Mississippi Valley, with moderate confidence, and expects the small area of drought in far Southeast Alaska to be removed because October there is typically very wet. For Hawaii it expects no drought development, with heavier-than-normal rain favored over the next few months, which it describes as common during ENSO episodes. In Puerto Rico, improvement is expected in the northeast and the upper southwest, where the heaviest rain is forecast, and in the U.S. Virgin Islands confidence is low.

The outlook is not a blanket forecast of relief. The discussion expects drought to persist farther north and west because October leans dry and warm there, and in parts of the Midwest. It also leans dry from northern Colorado and central Nebraska northward. The next outlook is due Oct. 31 at 3:00 p.m. Eastern, and the lower Mississippi Valley, where the Drought Monitor shows conditions worsening against the forecast, will be the area to watch.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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