The large, warm pool of ocean water in the Indian and west Pacific Oceans has been growing warmer and expanding in size since 1900, impacting the Madden Julian Oscillation and regional rainfall.
The latest maps from NOAA's Climate Prediction Center show where October 2020 is forecast to be much hotter and drier than average in the U.S. It's not a great outlook for the wildfire-affected West.
Extreme heat in the U.S. Southwest carried August 2020 into the record books as the country’s third-warmest August in the 126-year record. Despite heavy rain from landfalling tropical cyclones, national average precipitation was in the driest third of the record.
The September 2020 temperature and precipitation outlook favors a warmer- and drier-than-average September across the western United States, and a wetter-than-average month across the south-central Plains and much of the East.