Welcome to this special episode of the Southwest Climate Podcast with guest hosts: Gigi Owen & Christina Greene. In this special episode, we bring you 3 guests that were all part of the CLIMAS Environment & Society Fellowship program over the past year. A lot of the science that CLIMAS researchers do is done collaboratively with and for our community partners so that the science that we do ends up being useful to decision-making and policy development and planning. Our Fellowship program offers University of Arizona graduate students the opportunity to take this kind of collaborative approach to address environmental and societal problems. Our fellows are here today to share more about their work and what they've been up to over the past year.

Lois Ann Polashenski

• We Are All Impacted by Pollution
• Overlooked Impacts of Circular Economies: Copper Slag Repurposing in Cottonwood, Arizona

Alyssa Rosenbaum

• From Lasagna to Lettuce: A Journey into Fresh Produce Safety
• Where Science and Community Meet

A.G. Steig

• In Fire’s Footprint

Talitha Neesham-McTiernan (*Unable to attend podcast recording)

• Mapping the Missing Half? Mapping in the meantime: on community-engaged research when the ground shifts

Recorded 05/15/2026, Aired 05/19/2026

In this month’s Southwest Climate Podcast, hosts Zack Guido and Mike Crimmins answer what a strong El Niño could mean for the monsoon. They do a quick recap of the first half of May. And then it’s off to the races with a look at: sea surface temperatures in the Pacific, ONI vs. RONI, ENSO’s scientific history, monsoon and its interaction with East Pacific tropical activity, then finally a winter preview. Should be a fun and interesting few seasons to watch unfold!

Also, Zack gives a plug for the Monsoon Fantasy Forecast Game which will include a new weekly tournament feature this year.

Mentions

NOAA CPC - ENSO Strength Probabilities

Tropical Tidbits

WebberWeather

NOAA CPC - Outlooks

Google - Weather Lab: Cyclones

Paper “North American Monsoon Response to Antecedent Soil Moisture and Snow in the Colorado Plateau”

Paper “Tropical Ocean Contributions to California’s Surprisingly Dry El Niño of 2015/16”

Recorded 04/03/2026, Aired 04/07/2026

Hosts Zack Guido and Mike Crimmins go full coroner in this month’s episode of the Southwest Climate Podcast and do an autopsy of the record-setting March heat wave. Expect fluid dynamics, conservation of angular momentum, and level of divergence type of nerding for this deep dive. They go over the heat impacts to snowpack and forecasted streamflow, and the end of month precipitation event which looked monsoonal. Lastly there is some excitement for the upcoming super El Niño that’s brewing. Stick around on this long-ish one for a full explainer on the Pacific Decadal Oscillation - at the 1:02:43 mark.

Mentions:

Climate Perspectives - Western Region

Paper: “Synthesis of Publications on the Anomalous June 2021 Heat Wave in the Pacific Northwest of the United States and Canada”

USDA - NRCS: Snowpack & Streamflow

RainLog

NOAA - CPC: El Niño Southern Oscillation

NOAA - NCEI: Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO)