Smitty's Synoptic Synopsis: Hello...It's Me

Sunday, June 22, 2014

Hello...It's Me

I've thought about this for a long, long time...

Those of you familiar with this Todd Rundgren song, well nothing more needs to be said. I have wrestled with posting for quite awhile. Many still ask my opinion on the wx, in which I feel very humbled. I am still studying the wx picture nearly every day; some days more so than others. Those of you in my fantasy baseball circles surely know that I'm not studying, analyzing, or otherwise on the top of my game in that pursuit! Partly "Buzzard's Luck" and mostly mismanagement! But as for the wx, I am still looking at this on a consistent basis. And so, I'm going to TRY to put out a blog post in a somewhat more regular fashion during the summer months to see if being away has been a brief divergence of the desk top computer or I've simply lost the passion to opine as deeply about the wx. I will say that Twitter has made me "lazy" as I can put out a quick map, statement, etc whilst I'm on the go and not be tied down to the Logitech Keyboard. Remember, you can follow me @SmittysSynopsis in the "Twitter-sphere".

Ah yes, the Summer Solstice! At 6:51 am Saturday morn, the sun's vertical ray has progressed as close to our latitude as it ever will for the next 365 days. That said, from this point forward, the days will be slowly be getting shorter and shorter. I mean in all honestly, twilight astronomically runs from about 3:30 am until 10:45 pm around this time, meaning that the sky and stellar observation are somewhat obscured by the sun's scattered light since it is not too deep below the northern horizon! You can clearly see the NE horizon become illuminated by 4:30 am! So early summer has arrived, but not the early summer heat...yet. Take a look at the early am temps across PA this morning...

And the modeling has been very inconsistent in what the upcoming weeks may offer temperature wise. You see, the major driving forces of the jet streams and the global distribution of heat around the entire globe are the major oceans of this planet. As over 70% of this world is covered with this magical substance we nonchalantly call water, it has a very unique way of moving and distributing the heat or lack thereof around the globe. Most of you have heard of the El Nino/La Nina. This is an oscillation of the equatorial Pacific waters sloshing slowly back and forth in the Pacific Ocean basin. Trying to understand the El Nino status greatly enables meteorologists to hone in on longer term trends in the atmosphere. I'll not bore you further, but the equatorial Pacific signalling has been rather chaotic to some extent as well, thus the computer models are having a bit more difficult task at trying to note trends and patterns with the upcoming wx. Take a look at the skill scores of the 500 mb winds/pressures from both the GFS & the Euro from the past several weeks...90% threshold is goal.

EURO...(my go to model of choice many times)

GFS...

and even the Canuck...

Notice how poorly ALL of the modeling has been doing in the 5 day forecast recently...the Euro is certainly the best of the bunch in a very objective verification. But when it is wrong, it is very wrong!

So what does the Euro say? Glad you asked...temps going up to be sure...but how much so? From the first map in this post, temps can only increase from these current levels. What I'm going to do is show you the current map and the 10 day forecast for a few different parameters. First, the 850 mb temps or what the atmosphere's temperature is roughly a mile above the surface of the earth.

Current:

10 days hence:

A much warmer time...

Here is the 500 mb pattern; this is what is occurring in the mid-levels of the atmosphere...

Current:

10 days out:

Again, a much warmer look. In fact, this type of flow often gives us a hot and relatively low humidity type wx regime as the flow is "over the top" so to speak with a northwesterly trajectory.

And the anomalies...or the deviations from the norms...as run by the ensembles for the 850 temps...

Current:

10 days forward...

Again...a warming signal...but not overly hot...Here is a map as to where we stand essentially so far for this current month...just about spot on for PA; much cooler than normal in the northern plains!

Europe (w/ the exception of GB) has been much below normal!

And the precip over the last several months has been quite abundant in these parts as evidenced by the constant droning of mower engines!

In fact, a close-up here of PA shows the the Lower Susquehanna Valley has been quite wet!

The graph below shows the accumulated precip at Philly for the last several months...note how since May 1, the rainfall has become quite consistent creating ~7" surplus YTD. Soil moisture is good in these parts!