Kurt's Weather Blog

Summer Still Could Sizzle

Nobody should be complaining about how Summer 2017 has been going so far. Columbus went through June with below normal temperatures and adequate rainfall, while July so far has been just enough above normal to balance out June. Rainfall in July has been above normal, leaving the area green and moist, and at least prepped for whatever heat may await us the rest of the summer.

And it looks like some of that heat may be on the way. Our little run of daily showers and thunderstorms could be coming to an end soon, as the pattern shifts away from the Bermuda High setup we've seen for a few weeks. Widespread showers and storms can be expected this Monday afternoon, then less activity on Tuesday, and within another day or two the rain chances should dwindle to nearly nothing as an upper ridge takes hold over the middle portions of the country and builds over the Southeast (in July you can almost always count on a minimum 10% chance of a storm springing up with the heat).

Average peak of summer high temps (NOAA/NCDC)

Climatologically, we're at the peak of summer right now. If you figure the daily average temperatures for a given location and plot them on a smooth graph, our part of west Georgia and east Alabama sees the highest maximum temperatures between July 15 and 25 (Columbus proper: around the 20th - see image). This is a month after the solstice and in a period when days are actually getting shorter. (Why is it hottest a month or more after the most daylight? Explanation here.)

And by later this week, it looks like we're about to see our hottest weather of the summer so far. 96º is the hottest in Columbus this summer; that happened last Thursday. As the jet streak is displaced far northward, an upper ridge is forecast to develop in the middle third of the country and extend its reach deep into the

Jet Stream forecast Friday

southeastern states. A strong ridge in July is inevitably going to lead to heat, and in our area will also stabilize the atmosphere to a degree, making it tough for daily thunderstorms to develop. Current indicators based on model data  suggest that Friday and Saturday could be the peak of the heat, before the ridge begins to break down a bit.

That's the one major change in our weather for the week ahead - keep cool and hope we get rain today and Tuesday for it may be the last we'll see in awhile.

Kurt Schmitz, Senior Meteorologist

Bring on July!

Summer is advancing, and up to now we've been able to avoid any serious heat. Just five years ago on June 30, 2012 Columbus broke its all-time high with 106ºF, sandwiched in between a couple of 105ºs. This was part of a three day heat wave at the end of June/beginning of July that year. An interesting footnote to this was that the first two-thirds of that month had actually been below normal in temperature prior to the heat surge. June 2012 was also quite dry with less than half the average rainfall for the month. In contrast, this June has been unusually wet, which doesn't mean we can avoid a heat wave later in the summer but might help keep highs closer to average for awhile.

Weather prospects are looking brighter for Columbus and the valley over this first weekend of July. First, we get one more day of scattered to numerous showers and thunderstorms Friday. Several factors have come together to give us more than ample rainfall these last two days: a moist air mass in place, a weak upper air disturbance, and just enough of a daytime rise in temperatures to add to instability. This trend continues today, at least until the feature aloft gets caught in the larger scale pattern and is swept away.

Beginning Saturday, the departure of the upper wave will allow for a bit more sunshine, and just enough instability to keep open the chance for isolated showers and thunderstorms, driven mainly by the extra heating. Temperatures will respond by embarking on a warming trend that will take us to the 4th of July with highs climbing back into the low to mid 90s and mornings that will continue to be quite muggy.

Summer temperature data

The more isolated nature of the showers we're forecasting over the coming week is pretty much what we normally expect in July. It's the month with the most thunderstorms and second wettest (behind March) on average for Columbus. But it's also the hottest month, by a small margin over August, despite the gradually declining daylight; we lose a half-hour (31 minutes, actually) from the 1st of July to the end of the month.

But around the world, I expect we may see more eye-popping heat records like this: the remarkable 129º temperature recorded in Iran. And that's not a dry heat; dew points there occasionally reach levels seen nowhere else on earth - as high as 90ºF. Some scientists think that parts of the Middle East could become uninhabitable for humans as the world's climate continues to warm.

Kurt Schmitz, Senior Meteorologist

March Madness on the Weather Maps

"April is the cruellest month".  Well, T.S. Eliot thought so, and it may be so in the British Isles.  But on this side of the pond March would be a strong candidate, especially to a weather forecaster.

Since January we've been teased into believing an early spring is at hand, as have the flowering plants, insects, animals, and especially the weatherman.  After all, records were broken all over the U.S. for the warmest winter on record (Columbus had its second warmest in modern records next to 1949-50).  But it seems Mother Nature always has a few surprises up her sleeve - remember 1993?  Now we're facing prospects of a freeze in the coming week as the pattern shifts back to something more wintry on the weather maps.

But is this really a late freeze? The reality is that mid-March is right in line with the average late freeze in West Georgia.  We've just been fooled into thinking it's spring due to the anomalous warmth we've had for months going back to late 2016.  This warmth has helped us out in one way: it's kicked the severe weather and tornadoes unusually far north and west the past several weeks, leading speculation that we may have a quiet tornado season in the Southeast.  Now that cold is making a comeback, we'll have to hope it doesn't rev up again since the clash between retreating cold and returning warmth is one big reason tornadoes occur in the spring.  April could get interesting, too.

Monday AM

Monday Evening

Tuesday AM

(Maps courtesy NOAA/WPC)

This week will begin with a double-barreled snowstorm that turns into a blizzard for the east coast.  That will include almost the whole I-95 corridor and the big eastern cities from Virginia to Maine.  Even this afternoon (Sunday) we're seeing it snow in places like Fayetteville, North Carolina where they hadn't had any snow at all during the winter months.  Note on the map the two low centers producing snow headed to the Atlantic coast: when the upper air energy of each one comes together, we'll see an explosive drop in the surface pressure, in other words a "deepening" of the storm.  Heavy snow of up to 2 feet whipped around by wind will accompany the storm up the coast.  Throw in a rain/snow line and some ice and sleet and you have a storm worthy of the attention it will get in the news media.  (Of course, its location in the East automatically means it will get more airplay than if it happened in another part of the country.)

So what are we in for?  We already had one round of rain from the first system Saturday night and Sunday.  The second wave will bring us more rain Monday and Monday night, though in neither case will the rain amount to a lot.  And sorry, no snow here as the precipitation will be gone before the rush of cold air.  What the eastern storm will do is draw down some of the coldest air we've seen in awhile with Canadian high pressure taking over Wednesday and Thursday in the wake of the departing storm.  If skies clear as expected and winds stay light, we're likely to see frost and freezing temperatures both mornings.  Under ideal conditions, there could be lows in the upper 20s either day, especially in areas that tend to get a bit colder.  Sensitive plants that may have gone in the soil a bit early will certainly need some sort of protection those mornings, and it remains to be seen what will happen to the early blooms of azaleas, dogwoods, cherry trees, and other spring flowers.

And what about that other March Madness? You know, college basketball?  As always I'll be pulling for my Wisconsin Badgers in the tourney - the team isn't as good as the Final Four squads in 2014 and '15, but they're loaded with seniors skilled enough to make a decent run.  And I'll hope their games aren't on too late so I can make my early work schedule without losing a lot of sleep.  On Wisconsin!  (Oh, and I'll also be pulling for a pretty good Georgia Bulldogs team in whatever tournament they qualify for.)

Kurt Schmitz, Senior Meteorologist

 

Weather Gone Wild

Random interesting weather notes of late:

• Burlington, Vermont broke its all-time February high temperature record this past Thursday. Then hit 70º on Saturday to break it again, this time 15 degrees over the daily record for February 25.
• The ratio of record daily highs in the U.S. to record lows so far this year:  4,982 to 42 (and counting, and getting higher).  February records are being broken all over the country, including Milwaukee where it hit 70º for the first time ever in February.
• It's not just the U.S., either.  Toronto, Ontario broke its all-time February record with 63º this past Thursday.  Temperature anomalies in the Arctic have been off the charts much of the winter, and the ice coverage in the Arctic seas has been shrinking with remarkable speed.
• McAllen, Texas was 101º on Thursday, the earliest triple-digit temperature on record.  Galveston, Texas has set an incredible 31 record daily highs since November 1 last year.
• In Miami, through Friday they had 54 days since the beginning of winter (December 1) that hit 80º, and it has not dropped below 50º all winter.  Neither one of those has ever happened before.
• A multi-phase tornado outbreak happened close by January 21-22, the worst January outbreak in years.  Severe storms in February have been nudged north: parts of Michigan were under rare watches on Friday and there were a slew of warnings for wind and hail.  On Saturday, violent winds hit Massachusetts; if surveys show the damage came from a tornado, it would be the first February tornado in the state's history.
• California has been hit with intense Pacific storms and copious rains this winter, all but ending the drought in the Golden State.  Higher mountain ranges are buried in snow.  This kind of west coast weather is rarely seen outside of El Nino winters, and this is not one of those.
• Columbus has set only one record high this February (80º on Friday) but the month as a whole (through Saturday) is only .1º off the record of 57.9º set in 1957 - the numbers the next two days will determine if we break that or not.  We still have two days to go in meteorological winter, so we'll see if this one goes into the books as the warmest winter ever.   Both December and January were well above average, and just glancing at the data without actually running the numbers, it looks like we'll be competing with 1948-49, 1949-50, 1956-57, and 1973-74 for that...um..."title".
• Trees are blooming early here and elsewhere.  Washington DC's famed cherry trees are in bloom at the earliest time ever.  Pollen counts in our own area are up.  Scientists who track such things have put out a map showing the early onset of spring as seen in nature.
  

  Spring leaf index anomaly (National Phenology Network)

March-May temperature forecast (NOAA/CPC)

This is just a sampling of this crazy winter as remarkable anecdotes continue to pour in.  There may be more to come since all indications are spring will continue warm, at least here in the South.  While many are probably finding it rather pleasant to have an early end to winter, and few were complaining about our 80-degree Friday, I've mentioned on the air several times that something about that is a bit unsettling.  Pollen season will be early and drawn out, certain insects are likely to be out sooner than normal and will have a longer season. 

Especially of concern to climatologists and meteorologists is the shrinking arctic ice cap, and the normally bitter cold temperatures there that have all but disappeared for long stretches.  Something is clearly amiss this winter, and in light of the earth's changing climate, many are wondering if this may turn out to be a trend that's accelerating faster than anyone thought.

Oh, and don't be too surprised if winter attempts a last-ditch comeback or two.  A freeze is certainly possible into early April, given the right setup, changing climate or no.  I'll point out that of the 4 warm winters I listed above, three of them wound up with a colder March than February (1974 was the one exception).

Kurt Schmitz, Senior Meteorologist

Winter's Here (no matter what they say)

Blah, blah..."and it isn't even winter yet!!" - Correspondent shivering in North Dakota on a national news broadcast

Try telling folks in North Dakota that.  I suppose that technically we haven't yet reached the solstice yet, but daylight is already very short and December is considered a winter month, so it's pretty meaningless to try and claim it's not winter.

"Siberian Express" upper air pattern

The weather maps certainly look like winter.  Arctic air has finally been able to come southward into the Lower 48 thanks to a realignment of the polar vortex and change in the overall pattern.  A "Siberian Express" pattern is bringing cross-polar flow and the origin of this air is at least partially from - yes, Siberia.  And that region of the world has been really, really cold going back to mid-autumn.  Temperatures as low as -20ºF were reported in North Dakota this morning, and the arctic air has pushed across the Great Lakes, fueling major lake effect snows in Michigan, New York, and Pennsylvania.  A large part of the Rockies has seen significant snow, making ski resorts very happy as they approach Christmas.

Forecast lows Thursday 12/15

And this cold outbreak isn't even as strong as the one coming down the middle of next week.  This one isn't really breaking records; next week's might be in some areas.  Temperatures shown on the map would be cold even for mid-January, and for some locations represent departures of -25º from normal for mid-December.  The trajectory of the coldest air will be from the northern Rockies and Plains toward the Northeast and mid-Atlantic, which bodes well for us down south.

The good news for us is that the cold might be just a bit over-hyped.   While we're certainly below normal today, this won't last as a warmup gets going already after one more cold morning on Saturday.  Nothing we're seeing now (or will see next week) is unusual for December; it may just seem that way since there's been so much warmth the last few months.  We're being protected to a degree by an upper ridge over the western Atlantic which will keep the really cold air from coming straight south, modifying it some by the time it reaches Georgia.  This persistent ridge has been around most of the fall and is largely responsible for the warmth and extreme dryness we experienced (warmest fall ever in Atlanta, where records go back to the 1870s).  The ridge has stubbornly held on and even rebuilt despite models trying to break it down every now and then.  It could come crashing down later this winter, but long-range forecasts do call for our winter to be warmer than average.  And the fact is, with our warming climate we just don't see as much extreme cold anymore as we did 40 and 50 years ago.

6-10 day temperature outlook

My definition of a cold winter day in Columbus is when the temperature remains in the 30s on a day when we have full sunshine.  We had only one day like that last winter (Jan. 23) and three the winter before (twice in February 2015!).  Out coldest temperature last winter was only 23º - most years we get into the teens at least once.  I doubt we'll see anything like that next week while much of the nation will be freezing (and slipping and sliding in snow).  But there's always January, and the active jet stream does at least open the possibility for a snow event sometime down the road.  Our last snowfall came back in January 2014, so we're about due for one.

But I wouldn't be at all surprised if it turns out warm on Christmas Day.

Meteorologist Kurt Schmitz

Oh-for-November

November is often a month of transition, between Columbus's "dry" season (early fall) and our "wet" season (winter).  As of mid-month we're still waiting to make that transition.  Columbus has picked up no rain at all through 15 days this month, extending the streak to 30 dry days in a row.  We had one day with rain the whole month of October (the 16th), and have to go back to September 25 to find the last time it rained prior to that.  That makes one day with rain in the past 51.

November can occasionally be pretty dry; the driest happened in 1956 when we got a mere .31" of rain during the month, and of course one good rainy day could eclipse that in a hurry.  Unfortunately, it appears we have no good chance for even a shower all the way into next week as the remarkable dry pattern continues.  (But if it's any consolation, that dry November 1956 was followed by over 9 inches of rain in December.)

And in the "be careful what you wish for" department: Remember last year, when by the end of October we were running about 2 inches below average rainfall, and then got a deluge in November and December of over 26 inches.  December 2015 was the wettest month in the city's history and we had to deal with flooding at Christmas.

This year, though, is quite unprecedented.  Fires have broken out in the southern Appalachians from north Georgia into Tennessee, North Carolina, and Kentucky in areas that are suffering from exceptional drought this year.  The smoke has spread throughout those areas and has been carried southward into the Atlanta area and at times all the way to Columbus, reducing air quality to unhealthy levels.

Smoke visible on hi-res visible satellite

Even a powerful cold front isn't going to help us out when it surges in this weekend.  Most fronts this late in the fall bring a round of showers and sometimes severe storms and even tornadoes to the South.  But even this vigorous storm system, which will produce near blizzard conditions in the northern Plains, will be so starved for moisture by the time it gets here that we can almost write off even scattered showers.  Instead, we'll have some passing clouds and a temperature plunge behind the front Saturday night and Sunday.

So how about Thanksgiving week?  Well, we can assume it'll be cooler in the wake of the weekend system, but there may be more reasons for optimism: the European model is bringing a follow-up storm system out of the Rockies, this time further south, by next Tuesday.  If models continue along those lines we might be able to put some chance of rain back in the forecast leading up to Thanksgiving Day.  I'm sure no one would mind a wet, cool Turkey Day this year!

Kurt Schmitz, Senior Meteorologist

October Oddities

We waited an awfully long time for fall to arrive, and when it finally did bring us some cooler mornings and low humidity we're still dealing with high temperatures in the 80s and day after day of bright sunshine with no rain.  Unusual?  No question.

To begin with, October can be dry more often than not. The mean monthly rainfall of 2.58" makes October our driest month on average, but there are years like this one where the rain disappears almost entirely.  We have collected .92" of rain so far this month, our driest since 2001, but since I came to Columbus in 1989 there have been 5 Octobers with even less rain than that.  The weird thing about this month is that all .92" came in one day, from a morning thunderstorm on the 16th.  Even that was isolated enough so that many places outside of Columbus got none at all.  The record?  The month of October 1963 when Columbus reported 0 (zero) the entire month - not even a trace. That mark cannot be broken.

The lack of rain going back through June has put Columbus and much of Georgia and Alabama in a serious drought situation, with a La Nina winter looming down the road.  La Nina winters tend to be dry and cold in the Southeast, and early outlooks from the Climate Prediction Center indicate a likely continuation of dry, quiet weather.  Not a good sign, considering drought is a long-term phenomenon and not easily eliminated.  We've experienced major droughts as recently as 2011, and prior to that in 2007 and in 1999 and it took more than a year to pull out of those.

But we may still be headed toward a record-breaking October in another measure: temperatures.  Through 24 days (¾ of the month) the average temperature of 71.1º would threaten the modern October record of 73.7º set in 1984.*  And with forecasts not calling for any major cold fronts all the way through Halloween, it seems likely that we'll be able to call this the warmest October in the last 32 years.

None of this is too far out of line with expectations given our changing climate.  2016 is well on its way to being the warmest year in history on a global basis, right after the previous record was set only last year.

30-day temperature outlook (Nov)

30-day precipitation outlook (Nov)

Will more heat and less rain be a trend?  Climate worldwide is changing (there is no credible doubt about this in the scientific community) but weather as always will be quite variable.  So let's hope the long range outlooks are wrong and November brings us a few cool, rainy, dreary days!

Kurt Schmitz, Senior Meteorologist

*Earlier records prior to 1948 do show several warmer Octobers in Columbus when instruments were located several miles from their present location.

Scorcher of a September

Anyone think it's time for fall? Time for some real cool weather? Well it's September, and although the South normally sees summer weather lasting longer than the rest of the country, this year it's been a bit above the norm.  If not for some cloud cover from passing Tropical Storm Hermine last Friday, Columbus would have been in the 90s every day since the month began.

Still, despite the recent heat we have at least had a drop in dew points, leading to mornings that have been somewhat comfortable with lows in the 60s.  Our hottest September came in 2010 (modern records) with an average mean temperature of 80.7º, and 9 daily records tied or broken during the month including 5 in a row from the 17th through the 21st.  The good news is that September 26 that year brought us a good cold front that changed the weather from summer to fall in one fell swoop.

Morning sunbeams on the Fall Line Trace

But then we had the strange case of 1925.  If people are complaining now about the heat, imagine the public ire that must have been boiling over in September of that non-air conditioned year.  Highs reached 100º 12 times during that month, including a long-standing 106º all-time record for the city on the 5th (equaled in June 2012).  The average mean temperature that month was 84.6º, which actually would rank among our hottest Julys and Augusts ever.  Amazing.  It's a mark that may not be broken for a very long time, even with our warming climate.*

In 1925 it never really cooled off the entire month.  A strong cold front on October 10 brought a sudden chill to Georgia, but the pattern must have been quite anomalous up until then.  I've looked at weather maps from that month (surface obs only) and the heat was remarkable and widespread. It would have been interesting to see the larger scale pattern responsible, but frontal theory was only in its beginning stages, and we couldn't measure the upper air yet at all in 1925.

So we may have to bear with the heat for another week or more.  There are signs of a pattern flip in a couple weeks that would bring more fall-like temperatures our way, something that would fall right in line with a typical September as we normally see our first real cold front in the last 10 days of the month.  Cool air will be building in Canada and the northern regions of the U.S. as the sun angle gets lower and daylight hours decrease in this hemisphere, and it can only be held back for so long before it comes south.  So fall will eventually get here.  (Note: 2005 was a more recent unusual year as temperatures didn't cool off until around October 7. )

Georgia drought as of 9/6/16

The other problem for Georgia is increasing drought conditions, not a good thing to have as we are entering the driest time of the year on average.  Much of the state north of Columbus is experiencing severe to extreme drought after a dry summer, with no sign that will turn around anytime soon.

So bear with the heat for another couple of weeks!

Kurt Schmitz, Senior Meteorologist

*Modern weather records in Columbus date back to 1948 when instruments were placed at the airport location.  Previously the city's readings were taken uptown as far back as 1890, which could have produced less accurate and less consistent observations.

False Promises

A cold front, tantalizingly close to us, won't bring the temperature and humidity change we were hoping for last week.  This kind of false promise is typical of August here in the South, when other parts of the country are getting a little hint of fall, but even the forecast models don't seem to realize it's very hard to dislodge a hot air mass that's been in place for weeks.

We knew a cold front would make progress through the eastern U.S. over the weekend and early this week, and even squeeze its way through much of Georgia and Alabama.  That will certainly turn our winds more northerly on Monday but the push of drier, cooler air won't be able to make it his far.  The hope for cooler mornings and lower dew points has certainly faded, and summer will stubbornly hang on.  A refreshing break will come to those living from the Midwest all the way to the east coast, but only from about Tennessee northward.

The front will stall somewhere in the area, setting us up for at least isolated showers and thunderstorms each day through Wednesday, but as it breaks up and washes out two things will happen: our air will become more stable and any chance for rain is likely to disappear after Wednesday, and aloft a strong upper ridge is forecast to build right overhead.  The result is that by next weekend we're likely to be the hottest region of the entire U.S. other than the southwestern deserts.  Nature is sending us a strong message that fall is still way over the horizon, regardless of what the calendar says.

The other item that has the attention of meteorologists is the possibility of a more active tropics on the Atlantic side.  We already have a weakening Tropical Storm Fiona in the middle of the ocean but not a threat to any land at this time.  An weak disturbance well out from the Leeward Islands and an easterly wave barely off the African coast are showing potential for later in the week, and models already are showing  some development on these potential storms out beyond 5 days.  No model is reliable at that range, but the message is that conditions are becoming more favorable for tropical mischief in our region of the world, and since we are getting to the point of summer when the hurricane season usually starts to really ramp up, it will need to be watched closely.

Kurt Schmitz, Senior Meteorologist

Summer's Arrived

It's Memorial Day weekend, June is only a few days away, and it's about to get hot.  With all that in mind, I think it's safe to say summer's here - never mind what it says on your calendar!  (The solstice and the longest day arrives in a few weeks on June 20 but has little to do with actual weather, at least here in the South.)

Heat will be the big weather story this week, as Columbus is still waiting for our first 90º temperatures this year - but not for long.  We're right in the neighborhood today (UPDATE: Columbus hit 90º today, Sunday) and we almost certainly will on Memorial Day.  And that will set the tone for the rest of the week, as an upper ridge takes shape over the southeastern quadrant of the U.S.   Our normal high is around 88º right now, but we're likely to be several degrees above that each day through midweek.  Fortunately, dew points will be mostly in the 60s, which is moderately humid but not like midsummer.

The downside is that we're not likely to see any rain until late in the week.  We'll finish May below average, and realistically, to have a spell of dry weather in late May or early June is not at all unusual. By Thursday or Friday, models are forecasting the ridge to break down with an upper trough gradually taking over in the East.  That should set us up for at least scattered thunderstorm activity late week through next weekend, and any spotty showers before that would be very isolated and not much of a relief.

Sunday PM daylight high-res satellite image

As nice as our weekend has been, it's been raining in much of South Carolina and parts of Georgia adjacent to the Savannah River.  This is, of course, from the former Tropical Storm Bonnie, now merely a tropical depression with the circulation already inland over the Palmetto State.  Bonnie's only effect on our weather has been to keep our winds blowing out of the north, which in this case doesn't mean cooling but instead is keeping us toasty, since the sun's power continues to warm this air mass.  The pleasantly cool, dry weather of last weekend is just a memory, as summer will soon set in and it will be tough to get any cool air down this far south.

So it looks like hurricane season is off to an early start, which may or may not be an omen of how this tropical season will go later in the summer.  NOAA has issued its outlook for the coming season (that begins officially on June 1) and is expecting a near normal season with an average number of named storms.  This, as well as our overall summer outlook, is based on things like ocean temperature trends, upper air patterns, climatology, and more.  It's been a few years since we've had an abnormally hot and dry summer, but as we transition from an El Nino pattern to its opposite (La Nina), that particular setup has given us some hot ones in the past and I wouldn't be surprised if this summer follows suit.  Early summer rains are critical to how the rest of the hot season will develop, and it would benefit us to start June with at least average rainfall.

Since most of us (not me - I'll be working Monday) have some extra time this three-day weekend, take a little of that time to join in on one of your community's Memorial Day ceremonies, or simply take a few minutes and reflect on why we have Decoration Day (that's the old name for it) to honor those who lost their lives in service to the country.  They deserve to be remembered by all of us, and this is the day we set aside for that purpose.

Kurt Schmitz, Senior Meteorologist