This Past Summer...and October

I've recently had more than a handful of people ask what this upcoming winter might have in store in light of what we experienced last winter and this past summer.  As most of you are quite aware, this past summer (June-July-August) was noticeably below the 30 year norms...take a look.

July was the month were the deviations from the climatological means was the greatest for the eastern part of the US.  Note however a large portion of eastern Europe and Scandinavia was quite warm during that time.  But with the upper level ridge and subsequent warm surface temps in western O Canada, the cooler than normal temps teleconnect nicely here in the east.

And the cool has continued into September in spite of a very warm 1st week of the month...we here in PA have been getting bouts of cool from the Lakes as well as pushes of heat and humidity from the SE.  The dry ground in the far western US and CA have really fed back into heating the surface quite efficiently!

Look at the droughty conditions currently being experienced in the the west!

However, it appears that October might actually show some signs of above normal temps but not too anomalously warm...this looks a bit too widespread for all of this verify.  But the dry ground out west should be a lock for yet another warm month as per the pattern.

The Euro seems to think the warmth will actually come in the latter part of October as its ensembles cool the CONUS the first full week of October.

But its 30 day run looks like this for the last week of the month in terms of 850 temps...

In the not so distant future, I'll show you the analogs of the years many forecasters are using to pick up on atmospheric trends for this upcoming winter.  By noting the oceanic oscillations around the globe, these talented forecasters are able to hone into a pattern recognition that often verifies from noting what has transpired in the past.  Although not a guarantee, often the sensible weather does play out at the surface as per the analog years.  But that is a different story for a different day.  Here is the LATEST SINGLE run of the US generated climate model for the upcoming winter...doesn't look too hard to take now does it.  However, this will flip flop around like a fish out of water until more definitive inputs allow it solve the pattern closer to the target dates...

Personally, where this model has the warmest temps in the US, I believe it might end up being the coldest!  Remember the general rule of thumb; when it is warm in Alaska, it is cold in the eastern 1/3 of the US!

OK, now onto the month of, in my opinion, some excellent sport opportunities...NCAA football in full swing, NFL getting into the meat of its schedule, the start of the marathon NHL season, and of course postseason MLB!  Here's looking forward to...

...and the epic new MLB storyline...

Enjoy your week's end!

Smitty

AA: It was a cool summer and Sept has been to some extent as well.  But October might just break the cool trend...hoping the Os can get hot and win 11 more this month too!