The opening paragraph in Tom Skilling Blog makes me grumpy.
Wow–what a July open! It feels more like May! Wednesday continues on track to become the coolest July 1 since the 65-degree high in 1930. The official high at O’Hare since midnight Wednesday as of this posting has been 65-degrees–the “normal” July 1 high here is 82. All this means we’re experiencing May-level temperatures in early July–it’s quite unusual.
I love warm weather. It did finally warm up last week and I wanted it to stay that way. I’m wearing a sweat shirt and winter pants. Shoot! Tom does promise warm weather lovers an end to the cooth.
Also, a set of medium range computer forecast models–including the National Weather Service’s GFS model (which is run out to 384 hours four times a day) and the European Center’s ECM Ensemble model, continue indicating a big dome of hot air is to puff up across the nation’s mid-section next week–probably mid and late week. The jet stream retreats north in this scenario. But the scenario does open the possibility of re-establishing a “ring of fire” type pattern in which clusters of thunderstorms flare at the periphery of the hot air, running from the Rockies into the northern Plains and possibly affecting the central and northern Midwest. If true, cooler outflow boundaries could have an effect on the northward extent of the hot air. But the building depth of the hot air mass is significant and should comfort those who prefer hotter weather than today’s that summer’s heat is far from history.
After a cool start to June, we did briefly experience the “ring of fire” and did hit the 90s. The cool patches dominated and we had the coolest June in 23 years. We also experienced the lots of thunderstorms and had the cloudiest June since the ’69.
I’ll look at the bright side: El Nino is coming. At least fall and winter should be warm. But I hope we avoid drought in August. I hate watering the lawn. Though, I guess with the current soil moisture crops should skate through even if the rain levels fall.
According to AGW = La Nina will make it much worse. Because you know, they (AGW) said El Nino was responsible for fall in temps during 2008. Well we have the beginnings of a Nina 2009, lets see what they will say if temps continue to fall? (as its seems to date anyway). BTW how can we get Spanish “enye†symbol over 2nd n for La Nina here so we can put correct word? Think I got the El ninos la ninas right I hope or was it the other way round?
VG,
Other way around, I think. El nino causes warming, la nina causes cooling.
Hold down the key and type 164 on the number pad (make sure Num Lock is on). Like so: El Niño
There are plenty of sites that show the key codes, here’s the one I used:
ALT+NUMPAD ASCII Key Combos
A word disappeared there because I put angled brackets around it. It should read “Hold down the <Alt> key and type 164”
Lucia, sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the El Nino may fall apart by the late fall or winter and historical analogs suggest that we could be in for an “old-fashioned” winter a’ la the 1960’s. As soon as stores start selling snow-blowers, I am going to buy one.
June’s average temperature was 3.8 degrees below normal and rainfall was +5.44″ (at least according to my backyard weather station in NE NJ) and for the year, 0.6 degrees below normal and precip +1.58″. I am very interested in the global temperature anomalies for June.
In Canberra, Australia, June temperatures were 1.5 degrees centigrade above average. Rainfall was minus 5 mm. Temperature anomaly for the year to date here is at least +1 degrees centigrade, and we are more than 100mm down on year-to-date average rainfall. El Nino coming is bad news for south-eastern Australia. 🙁
I guess what I am trying to point out is that a single area of the globe is not much of an indicator as to what is occuring across the whole of the globe. It is impossible for you or I to guess, based on our own personal experience, what the global temperature anomaly is going to be for June.
No one suggested we could. I suggested winter may be warm if El Nino hardens. That’s often what happens in the midwest during El Nino.
Excellent. 🙂
Your “rings of fire” are nothing like the ones we get out here in SoCal! 😮
oliver–No. You get real fires. Ours our usually metaphorical rings of fire. It’s been a long time since the midwest experienced regularly occuring huge prarie fires or Chicago burned.
Likewise, a particular change in the global temperature anomaly is not necessarily anything anyone ever experiences, cares about or notices.
BTW, the AC at my house is still off. July so far has been two nights of Wonderful Sleeping Weather in The Summer. Can some brilliant modeler somewhere produce a model ensemble that tells me the probability that I’ll have more or less of these kind of nights in the future? I hope the trend is up! 😉
Andrew
Here in San Diego, June was also cooler than normal by 2.2F. We only had a single day that was above average, hitting 73 degrees while the average for the date is 72.
What I thought was most interesting is that the average temp for June was just 0.6F higher than that of January! Needless to say, we had an incredibly warm January.
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/climate/monthdisp.php?stn=KSAN&year=2009&mon=6&wfo=sgx
Bill,
Don’t we usually have coolish Junes and warm Januaries in general?
This may or may not be a transitional period from El Niño to La Niña or even a whole new phenom (see: http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=6464).
So for the time period I think we should tag it an El Dunno phase in which all apparent changes in temperature confirm any expectations we pretend we already had.
Somehow, “Ring of Fire” seems a bit melodramatic for northern Illinois weather. If we are going to go poetic why not a Richard Lindzen meets Carl Sandburg thing like “Iris Effect Flinging Magnetic Curses” season; or maybe a more earthy “Stormy, husky, brawling–da weather!”
Thunder and lightning
Bring really lame metaphors
and haikus that suck
“El Dunno” wins the thread!
New England has spent the last three weeks in a Ring of Drizzle – much lower than average temps due to the jet stream looping down from Canada. Damn Canadians.