Spring/Summer Weather Discussion Thread

[TWCCraig]

KNYC (Central Park) which has records going back to the 1860's, was 2 degrees shy of breaking a record of 40 set in 1878. Meanwhile, the midwest torches, shattering all-time monthly max temps and the earliest record of 100 degrees in some areas.

[WeatherWitness]

This heat in the central/northern Plains today was incredible!!

Just to list a few cities:
106°F in Sioux City, IA, which shattered the old record of 97°F.
101°F in Omaha, NE, which broke the old record of 96°F.
98°F in Minneapolis, MN, which broke the old record of 95°F.

And what's even more impressive is that these cities saw winter temperatures Sunday morning, just two days ago!!  Omaha and Lincoln, NE went from setting record lows of 32°F and 31°F, respectively, Sunday morning to breaking record highs this afternoon!

I'm also not sure who saw the greatest difference in temperatures, but let's just say that Sioux City saw a low of 29°F Sunday morning (only 1° shy of the record low) and then surged to 106°F this afternoon - a 77° change in only a couple of days!  Just amazing!

[TWCCraig]

Agree with you Andy.

Another thing, just upsetting how we can't get cold air as strong as this. How easy it is for a city to break a monthly max temp nowadays, yet over the past several weeks with the cold air in the midwest, only a few areas broke monthly min temps.

[Metarvo]

Texas has just been walloped with tornadoes.  6 people are dead, over 100 are injured, and some really nice houses have been damaged and destroyed in the area SW of Fort Worth.  TWC is covering the aftermath, including live video and interviews with survivors.  The severe threat's not over; it looks like this weekend could get rough.

They just showed some more damage.  Cars have been flipped over, trees are down everywhere, and homes have been picked up and set down a la Wizard of Oz.  This is bad.

[TWCCraig]

With 850mb temps expected to below freezing, steep lapse rates and decent precip rates, it's going to be a crappy beginning to Memorial Day weekend here. If only 2mT's were cooler we actually could have been talking a snowstorm. Just a cold rain here, temps in the upper 40's, snow in the mountains. Monday looks ok. Endless winter continues...

[TWCCraig]

Had some sleet/graupel mix in today along with some almost completely melted flakes that fell, but still some frozen precip. Other people around the area can confirm this. Absolutely historic, but the latest frozen precip date of anywhere on the island is May 27th, 1961. We are two days shy of the real record. Earliest date of frozen precip is Sep 29th, set in 1893.

[phw115wvwx]

Craig, your winter blues should end by the later part of next week as a pretty significant upper level ridge is coming overhead.  It will finally feel like late May at that point.

[TWCCraig]

Heat and humidity will arrive here Wednesday and last through Sunday, peaking Thursday with off shore flow. Unlikely to break any records. Record for Thursday is 95°F set in 1987. Maybe set record high mins though with lows possibly above 70°F.

[toxictwister00]

I've really been enjoying this Spring, although a bit humid, it's been  overall cool in the 80s. We might not even hit 80 today due to the morning rain and low cloud deck.  Speaking of rain, man has it been really wet this year. Were within 0.60 of an inch from reaching the yearly total of rainfall we saw for 2012 which was just over 37 inches and were only halfway through the year! That's crazy! If we managed to keep at this pace, we can easily see over 70 inches of rainfall this year, which would be a foot and a half above normal.

[TWCCraig]

I've really been enjoying this Spring, although a bit humid, it's been  overall cool in the 80s. We might not even hit 80 today due to the morning rain and low cloud deck.  Speaking of rain, man has it been really wet this year. Were within 0.60 of an inch from reaching the yearly total of rainfall we saw for 2012 which was just over 37 inches and were only halfway through the year! That's crazy! If we managed to keep at this pace, we can easily see over 70 inches of rainfall this year, which would be a foot and a half above normal.

It's the same here. This was an awkward spring here. Started off cold in March. April was alright, a bit cool but very dry, day after day of sun. The dry spell lasted into early May and we've been in a wet pattern ever since, and KNYC only less than an inch away from breaking its all time wettest June.

Other than that, there are huge differences between the GFS and Euro. GFS wants to torch the entire medium range here. Euro wants to keep a trough over the area through the rest of the month. 0z GFS was hot with day after day 90+ temps, 06z backed off a bit and looks like it's trending towards a Euro like solution, with a ridge, then trough, then back to a ridge.

[WeatherWitness]

Spring has indeed been crazy.  In Norman/Oklahoma City, weekly cold blasts from very strong cold fronts would drop us down from the 70s and 80s to the 30s and 40s.  We would pick up at least an inch of rain from these fronts as well.  At the beginning of May, when temperatures were in the 50s, we wondered if "spring" would ever arrive.  Well, it did - when winter-like temperatures finally ceased after cold fronts moved through and our highs stayed near or above normal, severe weather exploded in mid-May, causing two EF5 tornadoes to strike the OKC metro area within a week of each other.  Now, thanks in part to the weekly cold fronts and treacherous flooding rains on May 31, Oklahoma City has just a little under 32 inches of rain for the year so far, which is 15 inches above normal!  This is definitely good news, as the OKC metro is now out of the drought.  But what may be more "incredible" is that parts of the state (in the west) are still in an exceptional drought!  So spring has not treated everyone equally.

So far (in OKC), June is wetter than average, with temperatures right around normal.  Cooler-than-average temperatures have been balanced by warmer-than-average temperatures, so the mean comes out near 0.

[TWCCraig]

Looks like Nome, AK tied its all-time highest temp ever today. Crazy heat up there. Tying an all-time heat record in June. Amazing turn around from a few months ago when Alaska was in a deep freeze.

http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/PAOM/2013/6/19/DailyHistory.html

[phw115wvwx]

Here's all you need to know about what's driving the weather for the last few months:  The latest Drought Monitor attached in this post clearly shows serious drought in large areas west of the Mississippi River, which has been very hot and dry.  There's no relief coming in the near future due to poor soil moisture and extreme warmth aloft.  Fires are running out of control in New Mexico and Colorado.  Meanwhile, hardly anywhere east of the Mississippi River is in drought, which has been considerably wet and somewhat cool.  Abundant soil moisture and evaporation has certainly helped, and quite a few areas in the East have been dodging flooding as more unsettled weather continues.

Things will need to drastically change to stop this overall pattern, because you're watching a serious positive feedback loop on both sides as I explained above.  Now, you see why normal is never something you obtain in weather patterns.  It's really more like a pendulum swinging between the extremes.  If you swing just a little too dry, you will fall further into drought.  If you swing a little too wet, you will deal with more flooding.  Something major has to come to break it up and reverse the pattern.

[toxictwister00]

So The Adventures of Noah's Ark begins... 2-4+ inches forecasted from the NWS; TWC is forecasting 3-5 inches. Still too early to say, but if things meet or exceed expectations, I wouldn't be surprised to see this rival The Great Flood of 2009.
http://radar.weather.gov/radar.php?rid=FFC&product=NCR&overlay=11101111&loop=yes

Our NWS office is also mentioning the chance for tornadoes. In addition to that, they preemptively issued Flood Warnings yesterday for the locations that would easily flood during this event.

There is a pro to all of this, I get to enjoy 70s today and through the holidays!

[TWCCraig]

Weather has been kinda Meh here. I guess it's because I'm so used to the extreme weather we've been experiencing the past few years. 2010 had records snow in the winter, record heat in the summer, 2011 was just like 2010, but with Hurricane Irene, 2012 was by far the best (since I like extreme weather), though we had a remarkably warm winter, the summer was packed with tons of severe weather, microbursts, tornadoes, then Hurricane Sandy which is a storm I'll likely never experience again. Now it's 2013, the only real extreme event was the blizzard back in February, other than that it has been cold. In recent weeks it has gotten warmer and more humid. Forecast for the next seven days is perfect. Warm and humid, not one low below 70.

Today A slight chance of showers and thunderstorms after 10am. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 82. Southwest wind 10 to 15 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%.
Tonight A slight chance of showers and thunderstorms before 10pm. Patchy fog after 10pm. Otherwise, mostly cloudy, with a low around 71. Southwest wind 8 to 11 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%.
Independence Day Patchy fog before 10am. Otherwise, mostly sunny, with a high near 85. Southwest wind 8 to 15 mph.
Thursday Night Partly cloudy, with a low around 71. Southwest wind 6 to 15 mph.
Friday Patchy fog before 10am. Otherwise, mostly sunny, with a high near 88. Southwest wind 7 to 14 mph.
Friday Night Patchy fog after 4am. Otherwise, partly cloudy, with a low around 72.
Saturday Patchy fog before 8am. Otherwise, mostly sunny, with a high near 88.
Saturday Night Patchy fog after 4am. Otherwise, partly cloudy, with a low around 72.
Sunday Patchy fog before 8am. Otherwise, mostly sunny, with a high near 87.
Sunday Night Patchy fog after 4am. Otherwise, mostly cloudy, with a low around 72.
Monday Patchy fog before 7am. Otherwise, mostly sunny, with a high near 92.
Monday Night Patchy fog after 4am. Otherwise, partly cloudy, with a low around 73.
Tuesday Patchy fog before 7am. Otherwise, mostly sunny, with a high near 92.