The ongoing drought of 2011-2012 has been front and center for people in the southern United States, including the southwestern United States.  Dave Brown, Director of Climate Services for the Southern Region through NOAA's National Climatic Data Center, speaks about the causes, impacts, and outlook for this widepread climate event. 

Jake Crouch of the National Climatic Data Center recaps the temperature patterns of 2011, emphasizing the much greater than average warmth across Arctic latitudes and the influence of La Niña in the tropical Pacific. 

Last year on Groundhog’s Day, large swaths of the country were covered in two feet of snow or more after a large storm pounded the eastern United States.  This year, Punxsutawney Phil emerged from his den on a balmy day after the third-least snowy January on record.  A comparison of snowfall (or lack thereof) so far this season to last year's winter white-out shows what a difference a year makes. 

Climate forecasters often describe the Arctic Oscillation as the “wild card” of the winter forecast.  So far in 2011, the Arctic Oscillation has been in its positive phase, playing the card that favors a milder winter in the eastern United States. 

Molly Heller is part of a team of scientists who processes flasks of air samples in NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, CO.  Week in and week out, Heller and her colleagues unpack sealed glass flasks shipped back to Boulder from dozens of remote sites around the world.  What’s inside is priceless: air captured from a site near Tasmania’s Cape Grim; from Summit, Greenland; the Canary Islands; the South Pole.