Even though climate monitoring involves much more than just acquiring information, monitoring isn't possible without reliable access to high quality climate information within 24 hours of measurement from as many locations as possible. Previously, when timely access to this information wasn't possible, decision makers had no reason to take steps to reduce the effects of climate trends until it was often too late.

Precipitation Trends in Winnemucca, NV 1997-1998 Current and historical accumulated precipitation for Winnemucca, Nevada. Conditions through the first three months indicated the possibility of a drought. Since the middle of January, however, precipitation has brought contiditons to well above normal.

Drought, for example, is a condition which seems to be occurring in some portion of the West nearly all the time. Recognizing this, the Western Governors Association formed the Western Drought Coordination Council. To address the Coordination Council's mission, WRCC has teamed with the National Drought Mitigation Center and regional experts to produce Western Climate and Water Status reports each quarter, with daily updates on the Internet. Redmond is the lead author of these reports which funnel information on water supply, snowfall, and other climate-related issues to decision makers.

And it is only because of long-term monitoring that the relationship of western climates to El Niņo/La Niņa, a warming or cooling of the Pacific Ocean between South America and the date line, was discovered. In a similar way, scientists today are learning about decades-long variations in global and regional climate systems, the information needed to learn whether human activities affect climate in any measurable way.

Percent of Average Preipitation April 1998 Percent of average monthly precipitation for the United States during April 1998. this information can be used to evaluate drought or flood conditions, both current and potential.

In collaboration with the Colorado Climate Center, WRCC is developing a better tool--the Standardized Precipitation Index--for tracking drought and wet periods. The Colorado Climate Center has been working to improve use of snow depth data from 650 mountain sites, monitoring needed to predict western water supplies.

"Daily monitoring of climate status and trends will enable us to provide advanced warning of potentially hazardous conditions such as drought, floods, heat waves, and freezes," according to Reinhardt. "Helping managers and policy makers integrate climate information into their decisions improves productivity during normal operating conditions and enables preventive measures to be taken before and during extreme events."