Climate.gov Data Snapshots: Precipitation - Monthly Outlook

Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Name	File Type	Size	Last Modified
data			06/23/2025 07:57:PM
Climate_gov_ Data Snapshots.pdf	application/pdf	6.2 MB	06/17/2025 04:57:PM
Precipitation - Monthly Outlook _ NOAA Climate.gov.pdf	application/pdf	1.2 MB	06/17/2025 04:57:PM

Project Citation:

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Climate.gov Data Snapshots: Precipitation - Monthly Outlook. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2025-06-23. https://doi.org/10.3886/E233225V2

Project Description

Project Title: Climate.gov Data Snapshots: Precipitation - Monthly Outlook

Summary:

Q: What are the chances that total precipitation will be below, near, or above average next month?

A: Colors show where total precipitation has an increased chance of being higher or lower than usual during the next month. The darker the shading, the greater the chance for the indicated condition. White areas have equal chances for precipitation totals that are below, near, or above the long-term average (median) for the month.

Q: How do experts develop these forecasts?

A: Climate scientists base future climate outlooks on current patterns in the ocean and atmosphere. They examine projections from climate and weather models and consider recent trends. They also check historical records to see how much precipitation fell when patterns were similar in the past.

Q: What do the colors mean?

A: Colors on the map show experts’ level of confidence in their forecasts for above or below median precipitation totals. Each location on the map has some chance to receive precipitation that ranks in the bottom, middle, or top third of records from the previous three decades. White areas have equal chances for each condition. Colors show where the odds for one of the three conditions are higher than for the other two.

A common mistake is to interpret these maps as predictions of precipitation amounts. However, dark green areas are not predicted to receive more precipitation than light green areas. The dark green areas simply have a higher likelihood of receiving above median amounts of rain than the light green areas do. Similarly, dark brown areas are not predicted to receive less rain than light brown areas.

Keep in mind that outlooks show the most likely condition for each region, not the only possible outcome.

Q: Why do these data matter?

A: Water managers, farmers, and forestry officials have an intense interest in precipitation outlooks. They use them to help make decisions about water resources, irrigation, and fire-fighting resources. Flood forecasters also use these outlooks. They want to know as early as possible if an area is likely to receive more precipitation than usual.

Q: How did you produce these snapshots?

A: Data Snapshots are derivatives of existing data products: to meet the needs of a broad audience, we present the source data in a simplified visual style. NOAA's Climate Prediction Center (CPC) produces the source images for monthly precipitation outlooks. To produce our images, we run a set of scripts that access map layers from CPC, re-project them into desired projections at various sizes, and output them with a custom color bar.

Additional information

CPC issues monthly outlooks one-half month before the beginning of the month of interest. On the day before the new month begins, experts update the outlook for the upcoming month. Each monthly outlook in Data Snapshots shows the date the outlook was issued. Outlooks that include Alaska are available: while displaying an outlook of interest, click the Download button, select Full Resolution Assets, and then click OK

References

One-Month to Three-Month Climate Outlooks.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/forecasts/

Current Outlook Discussion
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/long_range/fxus07.html

Source: https://www.climate.gov/maps-data/data-snapshots/data-source/precipitation-monthly-outlook

This upload includes two additional files:
* Precipitation - Monthly Outlook _NOAA Climate.gov.pdf is a screenshot of the main Climate.gov site for these snapshots (https://www.climate.gov/maps-data/data-snapshots/data-source/precipitation-monthly-outlook)
* Cimate_gov_ Data Snapshots.pdf is a screenshot of the data download page for the full-resolution files.

Original Distribution URL: https://www.climate.gov/data/Precipitation--Monthly--Outlook--US/

Scope of Project

Subject Terms: climate; climate change; precipitation; forecasting models

Geographic Coverage: United States

Time Period(s): 1/17/2013 – 5/31/2025 (Monthly images from 2013 to present)

Data Type(s): images: photographs, drawings, graphical representations

Collection Notes: Data is divided in to folders by image resolution -- full size (zip), small (png) and large (png). Occasionally there may be one image missing in a particular size but available in another size.

Data downloaded from climate.gov 6/15/2025 - 6/16/2025 (small, large, and full resolution) and 6/21/2025 (others).

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Published Versions

V2 [2025-06-23]

V1 [2025-06-19]

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