Drought — Marshall Islands, Guam

2024-05-01 to 2024-05-28 · Marshall Islands, Guam

Event narrative

The Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) south of 9N continued to see improving drought condition through May with most islands improving from moderate (D1) drought to abnormally dry (D0) or no drought or dryness. This resulted from the strong winter subtropical ridge starting to weaken and lift north, allowing trade-wind disturbance that have been mainly near the equator to lift northward into the Marshall Islands. This pattern also started to bring drought relief to Wotje and nearby islands in the northern RMI, was in exceptional (D4) drought at the end of April. On May 7th, Wotje had improved to extreme (D3) drought, and this trend continued as Wotje further improved to severe (D2) drought on May 21st, and finally improved to moderate (D1) drought on May 28th. For the month of May, 6.94 inches of rain fell at Wotje, up from the 3.32 inches recorded in April, and the 0.00 inches reported in March.

Wider weather episode

Greatest impacts from the drought created by the dry season and dry phase of the now waning El Nio continued to be the greatest across islands near and north of 8N, especially across Yap State and the Mariana Islands.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1180758. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.