Drought — Marshall Islands, Guam

2024-06-18 to 2024-06-30 · Marshall Islands, Guam

Event narrative

The Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) south of 9N continued to see little to no drought or dryness. For the northern RMI however, rainfall observations from Wotje, which ended May with 6.94 inches of rain, reported several days without rain and ended June with 2.24 inches. Wotje, which saw improvement to moderate (D1) drought at the end of may, degraded to D2 June 18th and remained at D2 for the rest of the month. Wojte had reported below average rainfall for most of the year so far, causing the report of decreased rainfall to spark concerns that drought impacts would return, leading to the degrading to D2 in the Drought Monitor.

Wider weather episode

An active trade-wind and TUTT pattern brought increased rainfall to most of the Republic of the Marshall islands (RMI), however rainfall reports from Wotje, one the northern islands in the RMI indicated a period of dry weather had returned. Given the dry conditions reported earlier in the year, concern for drought impacts returned.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1196402. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.