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NOAA Drought Seminar Series
The NOAA Drought Seminar Series is a recurring monthly event dedicated to drought monitoring, prediction, and predictability. The seminar's primary objective is to establish a focused platform where national drought research, operational, and user communities can exchange the latest tools, research findings, and risk reduction activities.
A collaborative effort between NOAA Research's Physical Sciences Laboratory, the National Integrated Drought Information System, and the National Weather Service's Climate Prediction Center, this series aims to enhance NOAA's capability to monitor, predict, and understand drought behavior.
Drought is a key part of NOAA Research's science priorities aimed at confronting the challenges of a changing planet. It also is a key focus of National Weather Service operational forecast products and services, supporting stakeholder decision-making and reducing drought-related costs and impacts.
Each session will feature a speaker presentation, a question and answer period with the presenter, and general updates on activities within the drought science and services community.
The NOAA Drought Seminar series is generally held on the first or second Monday of each month at 1pm Eastern Time (UTC -4). Days and times may differ pending speaker availability.
Next seminar
Abstract
Mountain snowpack acts as the Water Towers of the Western United States (WUS) and provides the majority of freshwater used for agriculture and public consumption. Years with below average snowpack, known as snow droughts, can cause water shortages and landscape impacts such as increased drying of soil moisture and vegetation. Progress has been made in the research community over the past decade to try and define snow droughts and understand some of the drivers and impacts, but challenges remain including an agreed upon method or definition that can be used by the operational community (e.g., forecasters and natural resource managers). Another major monitoring and communication challenge is that snow drought impacts on the timing and quantity of water supply can vary greatly across the WUS depending on the underlying causes (low precipitation, warm temperatures, or both). This presentation will describe some ways snow droughts are defined, the role of warming temperatures on snow droughts, atmospheric drivers, and ongoing efforts to communicate real-time snow drought conditions and impacts to the water resources community.
Biography
Dr. McEvoy is a researcher in the Division of Atmospheric Sciences at the Desert Research Institute (DRI) where his primary focus is drought, snowpack, and mountain hydroclimate dynamics in the Western US. The Western Regional Climate Center (WRCC), one of six NOAA funded centers across the US, is housed at DRI and Dan serves as the Regional Climatologist. His work for the WRCC includes climate services, communication, and outreach, and oversight and development of user-inspired web tools to access and visualize climate data.
Upcoming Schedule
The following are the planned drought seminars. Times, dates, and presenters subject to change.
| Date/Time | Presenter | Affiliation | Presentation Topic/Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| June 8, 2026 • 1pm ET | Daniel McEvoy | Western Regional Climate Center | Progress and Challenges on Understanding Snow Droughts in the Western United States |
| July 13, 2026 • 1pm ET | Jeffrey Basara | Professor and Department Chair, Environmental, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at UMass Lowell | Flash drought monitoring, mechanisms, and predictability |
Past seminars
| Date | Presenter | Affiliation | Presentation Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| May 11, 2026 • 1pm ET | Jon Gottschalck | Operational Prediction Branch, NOAA Climate Prediction Center (CPC) | CPC operational drought services: Overview of monitoring and prediction products, outlook verification, Impact-Based Decision Support Services (IDSS) activities and ongoing developmental efforts. More info and recording |
| April 13, 2026 | Richard Seager | Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University | Pathways of ongoing aridification in southwest North America: Linkages across seasons in the ocean-atmosphere-land system. More info and recording |
- Seminar Organizers
- Andrew Hoell, Research Meteorologist, NOAA/OAR Physical Sciences Laboratory
- Hailan Wang, Meteorologist, NOAA National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center
- Veva Deheza, Executive Director, NOAA/OAR/CPO National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS)
