Looking for Relief From This Record Heat

One thing that I always like to try to do is look ahead at what mom nature might have up her sleeve.  In the winter, I admit that it is slightly easier as the jet stream tends to be more predictable and behaves more to modeling than it does in the warm season.  The timing of fronts and associated air masses is just a bit easier in the medium and longer term as opposed to the warm season medium range.  With that said and the vast improvement by the physicists and mathematicians who develop the modeling which amount to simply making equations of the atmosphere at all levels, I will go out on a limb and say that this pattern of a ridge in the mid section of the country will migrate more towards its climatological normal position in the western US and allow for cooler air to move south from O Canada, but also allow for the influx of tropical weather systems from the SE.  The map below shows the origin of tropical systems during the first 20 days of August climatologically.  If the ridge pulls west with time, this will allow an alley for these storms, if they develop, to move NW into the continental USA.  As my wife knows, I call these storms drought breakers as this is about the only way for mom nature to deliver meaningful rainfall in the "Dog Days" of August.

By the way, in case any of you were wondering why we call the endless summer days of August the "Dog Days", we have the ancient Egyptians to thanks for this.  During the pre-dawn hours of August, Sirius (Canis major) rises just prior to the sun.  Sirius being only 9 LY in distance is quite a bright star.  The ancient Egyptian culture believed the energy from Sirius and our sun helped create the intense heat of summer which allowed for the annual flooding of the Nile.  This is known as the star's heliacal rising meaning it will rise just ahead of the sun.  So get yourselves up before sunrise in the next few weeks and the bright star in the SE sky is Sirius, "The Dog Star".  The graphic below is drawn for the first week of August here at 40ºN.  Sorry I digress.....

 

As for the relief from the record heat (101ºF at KMDT at 3:02 pm Thursday tied the previous record max from 1991), I show you the CFS modeling for the month of August.  Doesn't that blue appear glorious.....blue being below normal temps.  Now I don't buy that completely, but the pattern does suggest that sustained NW flow will allow for cooler air masses to infiltrate into the central and eastern US.  Please note that the endless summer of heat and drought will persist across the Lone Star State.

And here is the 3 month average for Aug, Sept, Oct and once again, it suggests that we will have a cooler than normal early fall and that is often, not always, a result of wet ground as well.  So maybe the modeling is suggesting that the areas in the SE USA will be seeing some tropical weather that will allow for a cooling of the air masses as the energy goes into evaporating the rainfall.  But the drought continues in TX! 

Look at how ugly that drought is in TX!  3/4 of the state is in Exceptional Drought conditions. And you thought it was dry around here....Again....sorry I digress

Before we get to August, we still have another week of July and both the Euro and the GFS are depicting another bout of heat for the eastern 2/3 of the USA.  The map below is for early next Sunday.  The anomalies are not quite as extreme as this current heatwave, but nonetheless, temperatures will be above normal for another prolonged period starting the middle to end of next week.  See below....

So, of course it is hot now and you don't need me to tell you that.  Whether you are umpiring softball games, watching the corn and other plants playing defense in this hot dry weather, trying to catch fish in the 80º+ Susquehanna, or completing graduate papers, rest assured that this heat will generally abate early next week.  But it will not be swept out of here with nice refreshing NW winds.  It will be lurking to invade once again, but hopefully not as intensely.  However, keep the faith as a cooler August both in absolutes and against the norms is awaiting.  I will leave you with this classic Who hit in case you just needed a reminder that it is about as hot as it can get in these parts.  The Summertime Blues is what this heat and humidity can give me...... The cure is knowing that this heat will not last forever!  Enjoy this  10 minute Woodstock classic (personally I feel that Plant has it all over Daltry)!  Rumor has it that Townshend actually had a stage hand retrieve his smashed guitar?!?  Not sure why??

And enjoy the week's end!

Smitty

AA:  Hot today, hot tomorrow, not quite as hot Sunday, cooler Monday, but getting PDH again by the end of next week.  A 10 minute flashback to the summer of 1969 from Bethel, NY!