No Heat Waves Through Mid July

Now, I'm not saying that we will not have any heat.....in fact, the end of next week appears to be several degrees above normal for a day or two...but no more.  A heat wave is defined as 3 or more consecutive days of 90+F max temps.  I just don't see that occurring here in the Harrisburg area.  Oh, we will be close to some impressive heat that will once again build out over the central and southern plains up through Canada as shown on the graphic below.

However, by the following Sunday, cool will rule most of the USA east of the Rockies.  As seen below, temps should be at or near normal for the July 4 week, especially later in that week.

There is some discrepency between the operational run of the GFS and the ensembles.  Remember, the ensembles are a computer run of the atmosphere beginning with ever so slightly different initialization parameters and conditions.  The ensemble mean is the average of all of those runs all being weighted similarly.  I do believe that the ensembles do a pretty good job as to what the trend of the weather and jet stream position will be...and remmenber, the trend is your friend!



In fact, both the Euro and the GFS show a relatively progressive flow which is why I feel that no prolonged hear will be able to become established over the eastern US.  The Euro even has a bit of a trough here in the eastern US while the GFS (left) shows a fairly quick zonal flow...which is essentially a west to east flow.

As for the near term, enjoy the comfortable humidity that will be in place for us here in PA through most of Monday.  Then a brief resurgance of the stickys will be thrust upon us...but this too should be brief and not too difficult to take compared to what it can be like around here at this time of the year.  The map below shows next Monday and the higher dew points poised to move in just to our south.

In closing, I don't know about y'all, but I'm starting to think about football here in the midst of baseball season.  Afterall, once mid-July rolls around, it's just a blink of an eye, and 2 a days begin.  I at first thought it strange and even somewhat suggestive have McNabb working out with the Eagles in Philly earlier this week.  Supposedly, he was there for the dedication of the new Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at the Voorhees Hospital, which he helped fund with a large donation. McNabb then welcomed the opportunity to work out with NFLers who were simply his friends and quite the "no-brainer" since he was in town.  A deeper look might suggest that the Eagles are ready to trade Kolb and bring McNabb back as Vick's back-up.....seems logical to me.  I know, I know...stick to the weather!

Enjoy the week's end!

Smitty

AA:  Nice weekend; low humidity.  Humidity increases with some brief heat next week.  Longer term looks to be near normal or slightly below in terms of temperature; moderate humidity.  Just a thought; would the Eagles trade Kolb and then re-sign McNabb?

Nice Weekend on the Way!

I've highlighted 4 areas of interest on this morning's water vapor image.  The primary feature that engulfs the entire eastern US is this painfully slow moving upper air low that will eventually move to eastern Quebec by Sunday.  It's associated cyclonic flow will whip dry air in to our area later Friday, but it will also send in pockets of cold air aloft that will increase the chances on instability showers that could give a quick 0.10 inch rain shower with some gusts of wind.  The most likely places for this would be north and west of the Harrisburg area, but we could certainly see a shower as the colder air at 18,000' moves in.  One such area I circled is in purple and this area will cross over PA sometime later Friday afternoon.  Where exactly it passes is where the showers will be enhanced.  The red arrow shows the dry air that will move into PA during the course of our day.  The red circle in the Gulf of Mexico is an area where Arlene may just materialize this weekend?

The map below shows the much lower dew points that are forecast to invade our state by Saturday.  The map below is valid for Saturday evening.  Turn off the AC.  Definitely a nice refreshing break!

After this nice weekend, temps will certainly rebound for the middle and latter part of next week.  The Euro still is much cooler than the GFS in the longer term.  Here are the ensembles and their take on just how warm we are looking for the end of next week....about July 2.  The the expansive warm area over the Great Lakes and into the Northeast.

Even further down the road, if you remember I showed how the Euro and the GFS were at odds in the longer term.  The GFS had a monster ridge up into Newfoundland.  Well, look at the map now below.  Both the Euro and the GFS are indicating that once this heat from next week passes, temps will return to normal or even slightly below normal.  If that upper air flow would verify, we would be experiencing some very nice mid-summer weather with low to moderate humidity and warm, not hot temps!

The other reason that I always like to observe for any time of the year is the re-curving storms or typhoons in the summer over along the east coast of Asia.  Presently, the is a tropical storm that is forecast to strengthen into a Cat 1 typhoon (Meari) and take the path that is shown below.  This usually indicates about 10 days hence, a trough will be placed over eastern North America.  The modeling seems to be going that way.

The people of eastern China sure are hoping this is the track that this storm takes as they cannot handle much more precip in what has been a record breaking spring in terms of precip as shown in the graphic below.  Those dark blue areas exceed 450 mm.  Why the scale is not on this map, I'm not sure??  I retrieved it from Earth Observatory website.  450 mm of rain is a tad over 17" of rainfall!  Wow!

In closing, I was personally pleased to see that heavily democratic and labor union state New Jersey passed public worker reform in terms of benefits and pensions.  With the overhaul, actuarially, the pension system will remain solvent with more moderate and realistic gains in investments coupled with larger contributions from the pensioners.  I'm not sure why people don't understand why unsustainable public benefits need to be addressed.  PA did so last year with its pension reform for newly hired workers.  And now, PA is on the verge of passing a FISCALLY RESPONSIBLE budget.  It's about time the politicians succumb to political pressures and often what amounts to political suicide and pass these types of legislation that will allow for a continued sustainability for benefits and pensions for the public work force.  It will be interesting to see if the federal government can cope with these political pressures and pass meaningful entitlement reforms?!?  It must occur if the solvency of these programs is to persevere.  As for me, Chris Christie has grabbed the bull by the horns in NJ and showed what a good leader can do without the worry of political problems.  I wish our national leaders would do the same!

Enjoy the nice wx week's end!

Smitty

AA:  Nice weekend on tap; warmer next week once again....and then cooler longer term (normal or below) I do believe.

Cold Front to Bring Storms and Drier Air

The visible satellite picture above shows the approaching cold front as indicated by the blue line stretching from Lake Ontario southwestward all the way down to the western Gulf of Mexico.  I also drew a red circle out in the Atlantic Ocean showing some early morning thunderstorms popping over the warm waters of the gulf stream which is simply just an interesting view. And then the brown circle over the Lakes region shows the upper air low which is SLOWLY grinding ENE over the next couple of days.  When you really look over PA, you'll see just a few breaks in the overcast which makes today's forecast that much more difficult.  Yesterday, the air was really primed for a storm, but the heavy weather became established just to our NE.  If those breaks allow heating by the strong June sun of our soupy air mass here at the surface AND the front helps create some dynamic lift, we should see some drenching thunderstorms this afternoon.  Below is the SPC assessment of the situation.

Tomorrow, the severe threat will be to our east; however we could see some showers and thundershowers as the upper level low and its associated cold air will create steep lapse rates and allow for the daytime heating to destabilize the atmosphere and voila, a shower or t-shower is spawned.  Here is the model output of likelihood of showers tomorrow.  The NAM is giving us a 1 in 4 shot to have showers tomorrow, but not anything like what Thursday afternoon may offer for the Harrisburg area.

The front will pass east of PA by Saturday and lower dew points will invade PA by Saturday morning.  Below is the forecast surface map for Saturday and the 2nd graphic shows the probable dew points by Saturday morning.  How do you spell relief?

And the likely dew points:

Note that the high moving in is not that strong, so relief will be short lived as that high then becomes a chameleon becoming a Bermuda high by early next week which should pump our temps back to near 90F with higher dew points once again.  Ugh!  Remember I mentioned that the front went all the way to the Gulf.  Below is a recent visible satellite pic of the Gulf.  Note the thunderstorms at the tail end of the front.  This area must be watched for tropical storm development.  Still looking for Arlene!

In closing, this front does have quite a bit of history as it has progressed east producing severe weather (over 70 tornadoes since Sunday) and last night wreaked havoc in the Louisville, KY region.  If you were planning to play Churchill Downs today; fu-ged-'bout-it!  The strong winds displaced several horses from the damaged barns at Churchill Downs.  These severe storms moved through KY yesterday which included a cell which moved through Louisville at around 10:30 pm. As a result of that storm, damage occurred at the CD Racetrack.  9 of the track's 48 barns were damaged, and ~200 horses were displaced as a result of the damage. The NWS has yet to determine whether the damage was caused by a small tornado or a straight line wind gusts. The famous twin spires were not damaged by the storm!  Remember just a couple of years ago (August 2009), there was incredible flash flooding which occurred due to heavy thunderstorms as well.

Have a good Thursday!

Smitty

AA:  Storms Thursday...could be feisty, then a possibility of some showers Friday, but less likely as air becomes drier by day's end.  Nice weekend coming up!  Churchill Downs had some damage Wed, night due to severe T-storms.

Humidity Here Through Friday

The graphic below shows the dew points modeled for Friday morning.   As you can see, there is a rather steep gradient that is pushing towards PA by this time.  It will not be until Saturday, however, until we see a noticeable drop in the dew point temps and thus have a more comfortable feel to the air.

The hi resolution satellite image below shows that partly to mostly cloudy skies will prevail over PA for most of Wednesday.  There is a slug of "dry" air now over WV which will gradually work its way into PA.  However with the strong June sun and the fuel in terms of water vapor present, the thunderstorm pump is primed and ready to ignite given any little "umph" today on behalf of mom nature.  So basically now through Friday afternoon, a storm of relative strength in terms of wind and rain could be spawned here in PA. 

The maps below again indicate the probability of precip for the 6 hour period ending this evening.  Over the next 5 days, this is our greatest risk of showers and storms.  Again, I emphasize with the heating of the day in such a soupy air mass, storms could pop right through Friday, but today looks especially susceptible to this type of thundershower activity.

The storms prediction unit agrees with the Smitty assessment:

By this weekend, the air should become more reasonable with lower humidity and slightly cooler temps as indicated by the 500 mb map for Saturday evening.  Note the nice broad trough or dip over PA with the nice little reinforcing shortwave whipping additional cooler and drier air in from the north.

Looking further into next week, the global modeling begins to diverge on a solution.  The Euro looks cooler while the GFS looks almost hot for end of June and early July.  The Madden Jullian Oscillation suggests the Euro might be onto something as lower pressures are beginning to swing through the Gulf.  This in turn allows for offshore flow from the north making a drier and often cooler NE part of the USA.  The graphic below shows the divergence among the 2 models.  On the right, the GFS has a HUGE RIDGE going up into Newfoundland while the Euro has a trough in the exact same area and cool weather would rule east of the Appalachians......time will tell.

The only good thing about this humidity is that I finally put on our AC last evening.  And although the staging area in front of my home for the Extreme Makeover Home Edition was as busy as the South Bridge on any Friday afternoon, with my windows and doors closed, I was able to obtain several hours of shut-eye and even achieve some outstanding REM cycles!

Have a good end of the week.

Smitty

AA:  Storms anytime now through Friday, although Wed & Thurs look to be the days for greatest likelihood of storms.  Could be feisty.  Air's on and I'm now able to sleep at night.

Large Summer Solstice Cyclone

Below is a infrared satellite loop of the US on the summer solstice, 2011.  That is quite a cyclone for this time of the year.  Note the big thunderstorms moving eastward into the southeast US and the Ohio Valley.  Hence the rainout of the Yanks and the Reds this evening in Cincy.

The graphic below shows the upper air reflection of this surface storm.  Note the closed 500 mb low centered over KS and NE.  That's quite the vorticity associated with that closed low which is what helps to create the severe wx outbreak that I believed would occur in this part of the country.  The 2nd graphic below shows the severe reports with 40+ tornadoes from yesterday and another several from today. There were 15 tornadoes confirmed Sunday giving a total just under 70 for this period.  A storm chasers dream, to be sure and we are beginning to leave the severe weather season for this part of the country, especially widespread outbreaks.

Notice how the severe storm reports are migrating eastbound.  Our turn for severe wx will be Wednesday and Thursday, although our primary issue will be with gusty winds and very heavy rainfall.  My fear is that these storms will have little upper air support pushing them through an area, so one storm could deliver quite a bit of rainfall.

Notice how this is short and sweet.  I believe that is due to sleep deprivation.  You see, there is this show on ABC TV that I was not familiar with in the least called the Extreme Makeover Home Edition.  Well, this family in my neighborhood who have a son, now a paraplegic due to a gymnastics accident, are the recipients of a home makeover to make their home more suited to his wheelchair bound needs. What an awesome gift...but what a production in this metropolis we call Valley Green!  Holy Cow!  I never saw so much construction equipment and vehicles in one neighborhood at one time.  The logistics of this must be overwhelming.  For this week, I live in a gated community where I drive past an armed guard.  And they work 24-7 so this is completed in a week.  If it were just the constant drone of the generators creating illumination for the overnight workers that would make Temple University proud, that would not be so bad.  Its the diesel engines that rev to 5000 rpms climbing up our hill and out of the cul-de-sac to the home.  But really, that isn't all that bad either.......until.......they put it in reverse and....BEEP...BEEP.....BEEP....BEEP...at what seems to be well over 110 decibels!  I got an alarm clock every 15 minutes the last 2 nights.  These people are all excited to meet Ty Pennington.  I never heard of him; I was thinking it was multiple position eligible Ty Wiggington of the Colorado Rockies (OPS 0.781...not too shabby for a utility guy).  So y'all bear with this humidity a bit more (through Friday) and I'll bear with back-up alarms every 15 minutes (through Saturday night), and before you know it, June will be but a memory...unbelievable!

Enjoy your midweek!

Smitty

AA:  Big cyclone in the middle part of the country slowly moving east.  Storms will be around Wed, Thursday, and even maybe Friday.  Much nicer by the weekend.  And inadequate REM due to Extreme Makeover Home Edition in my neighborhood.

Welcome to the Summer Solstice

Literally meaning "sun-stop", this is the day when the sun attains its furthest northern sunrise & sunset in the northern hemisphere and is close to the longest amount of daylight as well in the northern hemisphere.  Due to other orbital peculiarities, the earliest sunrise and latest sunset do not correspond on the summer solstice, but they are very close.  The data for Tuesday, June 21, 2011 for Harrisburg, PA is as follows:

Sunrise:  5:38 am  (Twilight begins:  5:05 am)  Azimuth:  58.1 degrees E of N
Sunset:  8:41 pm  (Twilight ends:  9:14 pm)  Azimuth:  302.0 degrees E of N
Transit or "Local noon":  1:09 pm  at an altitude of 73.3 degrees above the southern horizon.  (Please note that the sun IS NOT directly overhead on the solstice.  This is a major misconception amongst most people that even think about this sort of thing....)

The graphic below shows the path of the sun at our latitude....~15 hours old sol will spend above our horizon!

I was actually in Fairbanks, AK in 1986 for the summer solstice; it was an awesome experience!  Below is a graphic showing the sun's path not only for the solstice but for the entire year.  Sure, Fairbanks at 63 N Latitude has a long solstice day in the summer, but 6 months later that day shortens dramatically.  Just like it never really got dark in Fairbanks at the summer solstice they say it never really gets too light during the winter solstice.  In terms of daylight, we blew out both headlights and the windshield when driving north to AK as less than 50% of the Alaskan Highway was paved at the time of our drive.  We did not replace the headlights until we got south to Anchorage when darkness did come at about 11:00 pm or so.  When we were there in 1986, temps actually achieved the mid 80s on the solstice which is quite warm for AK, but that lasted one day as temps quickly returned to the 60s and 70s in the interior and closer to the 40s and 50s down in the Yukon and along the BC coast and SE Alaska. 

There are numerous places where I'd like to visit during the summer solstice.  Any place at or north of the Arctic Circle on the summer solstice would have the observer actually see the sun approach the northern horizon but not plunge below!  Now that would be a sight to see! 

As would the party that takes place at Stonehenge on the plains of Salisbury in central England!

Enjoy the youtube video showing the summer solstice experience at Stonehenge:

Enjoy your Summer Solstice and make summer solstice 2011 a memorable one for you and your family!

Smitty

AA:  The summer solstice will occur at 1:16 pm EDT marking the 1st day of summer. 

Double Trouble

When speaking about the weather, trouble can come in a variety of forms.  Although here in our local area where the weather should be relatively benign, there are 2 areas to monitor this week.  The first is a severe wx outbreak that will center itself in the northern plains and the Midwest while the 2nd area is the potential for a tropical storm development with a wave of low pressure that is moving NW towards the Texas coast.  That is actually not entirely bad news for the residents of Texas if that could push far enough west to produce some beneficial rains inland in the drought stricken region of the Lone Star State. 

When I hear "Double Trouble", I think of that classic blues rendition performed by many artists, my favorite of which is by Clapton at Budokan in 1980 recorded on the Album titled Just One Night....sorry I digress!

The first graphic is from the Storms Prediction Center (SPC) and their Day 2 outlook for severe weather.  A moderate issuance is nearly a sure bet when it comes to the matter of severe weather.  In fact Craig, it looks close to where Waterloo, IA and Albert Lea, MN is located!  Take a looksy....

I have also attached the predicted surface guidance for that day.  One place to watch for severe wx is where 1004 mb isobar pushes east of a progressing storm.  That pressure is located right in eastern IA and southern MN.

That area of severe weather will be spawned and helped with an anomalous deep trough spinning through the upper plains and Midwest as depicted by the numerical guidance as shown below with the 500 mb prediction.

That trough and associated surface reflection of storms and a progressive cold front will be here late Thursday and Friday.  Hopefully, the feistiness of the sensible weather will be less than what transpires in the Midwest where there could be over 100 tornadoes this week!  This will be a newsworthy weather story to be sure.  The map below shows where the front will be Friday morning and the 2nd surface map indicates high pressure moving in for next weekend giving us yet another beautiful weekend of weather. 

 And here is next weekend: airflow at all levels will be from O Canada advecting cool dry air southward into PA!

So what is the 2nd trouble?  The potential hurricane or tropical storm as shown by the map below indicating copious amounts of precip just east of TX in the Gulf of Mexico.  As mentioned earlier, a hurricane can have positive influences as well as it could bring higher moisture content to the desert SW USA.  During that same period, it appears the modeling is suggesting PA receives nearly 2 inches of rain, most of which will fall with the frontal passage Thursday and Friday.

In closing, I just want to wish a genuine "Happy Fathers Day" to all of you who are fathers or who will be in the not so distant future.  From the US government, here are some tidbits of Dada Data:

70.1 million....Estimated number of fathers across the nation.

25.3 million....Number of fathers who were part of married-couple families with children younger than 18 in 2010.

• 22% were raising three or more children younger than 18 (among married-couple family households only).
• 3% lived in someone else's home.

1.8 million....Number of single fathers in 2010; 15 percent of single parents were men.

• 9% were raising three or more children younger than 18.
• 46% were divorced, 30% were never married, 19% were separated, and 6% were widowed.
• 39% had an annual family income of $50,000 or more.

So there you have it....Happy Fathers Day!

Enjoy your Fathers Day Sunday!

Smitty

AA:  Severe weather early week Midwest will move towards us by Thursday/Friday.  Then a nice weekend for next weekend.  A hurricane or tropical storm could develop by next weekend east of Texas.