Summer 2013 Outlook

[Joe Biden 2020]

Hey, Snowguy and/or Inks,

What is the outlook for this Summer?  When are we going to break free from these powerful January like cold fronts?  Will the Southern Plains be over 100 degrees despite all the rain this year?  What about the possibility of the drought returning?

[Frodo]

Except for the Great Lakes, generally warmer than normal.

Though this summer is not expected to be as hot as last summer.    

[fezzyfestoon]

Haha oh man, I feel bad for the Great Lakes area...that's just sad.

[Joe Biden 2020]

Oklahoma will see snow this morning.  This is May, Oklahoma should not be seeing snow in May!  That is just wrong.

Anyway, is this the last major cold front projected to sweep through the country this season?

[dead0man]

It's snowing here...for some reason.

[Nhoj]

I had about 14 inchs of snow this morning.

[MasterJedi]

Just rain here. Just shows that it's great to not live in Minnesota or Northwestern Wisconsin.

[Ban my account ffs!]

No snow here.. just cold.  A high of 34*F today... about 25*F below average and about as cold as it has ever been for an afternoon in May.

If you're perhaps thinking "wow.. this is like the complete opposite of last year"... you'd be right.  The oceans are almost opposite of last year where excess cool and heat are concerned.

There seems to be a correlation between the placement of sea surface temperature anomalies in the tropical Pacific and our weather:  Namely, when the central equatorial Pacific is warmer compared to normal than the area near South America, cold outbreaks are more common in the lower 48.

This is from last year.  Notice the warmer than normal water near the equator near South America.  Then notice the cooler water further west in the central Pacific. 


Now this year:  Notice it's much different... now the far eastern equatorial Pacific is cooler than the areas further west.

[Joe Biden 2020]

So, can we expect these cold blasts for most of the summer or will they back off and allow the country to warm up and stay warm for the duration of the summer?

[Ban my account ffs!]

As far as summer 2013, it's hard to say.  All things equal, the dry winter in much of the west and the continuing drought in Texas will allow the air there to heat up quickly, favoring a ridge in the west.

The soaked areas further north that are dealing with the cold and snow and rain would favor a sympathetic trough in the jet stream over the Great Lakes region.

And that's why the summer forecast is the way it is... though I think they're too bullish on the heat.  I think the cold spring has set us up for a summer not unlike 2004 or 2009 where cool air masses dominate from Canada over the central and eastern U.S.  This would mean a drier than normal summer over the Great Lakes/Upper Midwest, but also much cooler than normal... so such dryness likely wouldn't have nearly the impact it might have if it were warmer.

But there are indications a La Niña may be about to form.  Summers where La Niñas form tend to have the opposite pattern where much of the U.S. is warmer than normal... but the west coast and desert SW are cooler than normal.

But that's far from a certainty, and even if one does form... unless it's a strong one, the extremes that have been occurring in other natural oscillations have been overriding the El Niño/La Niña.  For example, the winter of 2010/11 was the strongest La Niña in nearly a century... yet mid-November into January 2011 was dominated instead by the negative Arctic Oscillation that plunged Europe and the eastern U.S. into cold.

What would be worst case would be a La Niña forms, but the negative phase of the Arctic and North Atlantic Oscillations remain in their negative phase.  This is very much a possibility because the Atlantic is in the tippy top of the positive phase of its own 30-40 year cycle... and a warmer Atlantic tends to displace the jet stream and storm track across the Atlantic further south than usual.  (Yes, I know that seems counter intuitive... but warmer ocean means south jet stream, colder ocean means north).

This is bad because during La Niña, westerly winds in the Caribbean that act to rip tropical storms apart are weaker than normal, allowing storms to form more frequently and to get stronger in the Atlantic basin.

On top of that, the jet stream is displaced unusually far south over the eastern U.S. into the Atlantic... and the mechanism that tends to force tropical storms/hurricanes to curve north and then east safely out into the North Atlantic before they hit the U.S.... is greatly weakened.

Instead, unusually far south hanging cold fronts from extratropical systems can catch storms and "sling shot" them into the U.S.

When the Arctic Oscillation is negative in summer... the U.S. has to watch out for landfalls.

While 2009 was a cold summer.. it wasn't noteworthy for landfalls because a strong El Niño formed in summer 2009 and coupled with unfavorable water temps in the Atlantic to produce a weak hurricane season.

But 2004 was a classic example of a fairly active season (though nothing like 2005) with perfect conditions for U.S. landfalls... which is what made 2004 so unusual.  It was focused on the U.S. like a laser.

BUT:  It's all very uncertain.  I say west warm/east cooler than they're saying because i want to take a stance and not be wishy washy... but there are no clear signals going into summer other than the unusually late/heavy snow pack across Canada/northern/central U.S. and unusual dryness in the SW quarter of the U.S., especially across New Mexico and west Texas,w hich will act as a heat factory.

So I'd say the cool is more substantial further north with the south-central u.S. possibly warm even though there are unusual cool "jabs" that bring several pleasant days even in mid-summer in the south.  But it's that very cool jab that draws hurricanes in like mice to cheese.

[Joe Biden 2020]

Both the long term and short term drought is over in Central and Eastern Oklahoma, but still going pretty strong in Western Oklahoma as they have not seen the beneficial moisture like the Eastern 2/3 of the state have.  Since drought breeds drought and parched ground heats up more quickly than saturated and nourished soil, I would imagine places like Oklahoma City will have a slightly cooler summer than 2011 and 2012, but probably a lot more humid in exchange.

[memphis]

Haha oh man, I feel bad for the Great Lakes area...that's just sad.

You want a hot summer? April was fairly cool here. F'ing awesome!

[free my dawg]

No freakish New England weather here yet.

[fezzyfestoon]

Haha oh man, I feel bad for the Great Lakes area...that's just sad.

You want a hot summer? April was fairly cool here. F'ing awesome!

A hot summer in Philadelphia is slightly less oppressive than one in Memphis, I imagine. Still, absolutely. I love the heat.

[Ban my account ffs!]

I just want a seasonably warm summer with plenty of rain. 

But keep this in mind:  The government and most private forecasters got the winter forecast wrong as well as the spring forecast.. .calling for warm warm warm... but we got cold cold cold.

So I wouldn't put much stock into the summer forecast.  There are no real strong indicators except that there's a slightly higher chance of cool in the east (centered on the Great Lakes) and warm in the west, centered on the 4-corners to west Texas.

But we could have been fooled... it happened in the 50s where everybody thought the drought would break after wet winters/springs.. only to be re-droughtified by summer again.

This can happen when the semi-permanent summer time high pressure center in NE Mexico is displaced further north.  The flow near the Gulf of Mexico and Texas switches from the south to coming from the east.  The central U.S. is cut off from Gulf  moisture which instead flows west across south Texas and into the deserts, which increases t-storm development there later in summer. 

The result would be widespread drought in the central U.S. with flash flooding in Phoenix.

[Ban my account ffs!]

The European model has been forecasting a major cold outbreak across the eastern U.S. for several days now with some areas potentially challenging records for the entire month of May.

If this verifies, it will likely be a major disaster for fruit/apple growers.  We're talking frost to the mountains of Georgia.

[Frodo]

The European model has been forecasting a major cold outbreak across the eastern U.S. for several days now with some areas potentially challenging records for the entire month of May.

If this verifies, it will likely be a major disaster for fruit/apple growers.  We're talking frost to the mountains of Georgia.

So how badly hit were those fruit growers? 

[Joe Biden 2020]

It has started warming up in Oklahoma, and now we're starting to get into summertime.  The drought is expected to return barring major rain.  We are entering an active stretch of severe weather, though, with a major severe weather outbreak likely Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.  Looking down range a bit and we have another chance of storms coming in Memorial Day Weekend.  Our temperatures have been consistently in the 80's with occasional 70's since the last very cold snap on May 2-3.  Our lows have consistently been 55 or higher.  This weekend, we're supposed to have our first 90 degree temperatures of the season in Oklahoma City adding fuel for a severe weather outbreak.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The European model has been forecasting a major cold outbreak across the eastern U.S. for several days now with some areas potentially challenging records for the entire month of May.

If this verifies, it will likely be a major disaster for fruit/apple growers.  We're talking frost to the mountains of Georgia.

So how badly hit were those fruit growers? 

NASS (National Agricultural Statistical Service) normally wouldn't issue its apple crop estimate until around August, but that was one of the things hit by sequestration so we won't get that this year.

However, as for the frost itself: Several states reporting freeze damage, however not as widespread as in 2012.