December 2013 VS 2014 Over The West

Dan Lindsay (NOAA, CIRA at Colorado State University) posted these images to the MAP list yesterday. The maps show departures from the long-term December average precipitation - 2013 above and 2014 below. Note that this year's December was wetter than average to about same extent as 2013 was dry (~ 8 inches) over parts of northern California. The last few days have brought extremely heavy rains to portions of northwest Washington state, where drought prevailed during 2013. Similar flip-flops have occurred over portions of Arizona, but of much smaller magnitude, of course. The maps were generated at:                     http://water.weather.gov/ahps/