North American Monsoon

Reported May 2005

BOULDER, Colo. (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- Summertime brings the right mix of conditions for thunderstorms, but pinning down their exact location makes forecasting summer weather unpredictable. A group of researchers is trying to change that, and the results could have a huge impact on our economy.

It's hard to believe local thunderstorms, heavy rains, or even drought we see across the United States can be caused by storm systems created off the coast of western Mexico.

At the National Center For Atmospheric Research, or NCAR, scientists discovered this link and are predicting how it will impact this summer’s weather.

"What's going on to our south can have a, a very pronounced impact on the weather we get across the central United States," says David Gochis, of the Research Applications Program at NCAR in Boulder, Colo.

So meteorologists are traveling south of the border to study what they call the North American Monsoon. A monsoon is characterized by a seasonal shift in the wind direction. During the wet season -- or summer monsoon -- the winds blow from the ocean onto land, bringing humid air and heavy rains.

Gochis says, "It may sound like subtle differences but for the people in those areas it's a very significant difference. They're getting rain, it's affecting their climate, it's affecting their energy use in several different ways."

When the study is complete, it will give forecasters a better gauge of the climate system during the summer. "It should allow people to better plan their activities, whether they be economic activities, things like agriculture, things like energy production, whether they be recreational activities," Gochis says.

And because weather impacts everyone, that's a forecast that would be good for us all.

They've set up weather equipment all over Mexico to track patterns into the United States. This North American Monsoon Experiment began in 2004 and will continue through 2009.

Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:

David Gochis, Ph.D.
NCAR Research Applications Program
Boulder, Colorado
(303) 497-2809
gochis@ucar.edu

NCAR Media Relations
(303) 497-8604
anatta@ucar.edu


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