Weather Not Acting Like July 4

As I contemplated the meaning of this day, July 4, my thoughts run the gamut about America, freedom, and independence.  Essentially, just how blessed I am to live in this beautiful country!  But as many of you are aware, ultimately my thoughts turn to the weather.  July 4 can often be...(and is more often than not according to my lovely bride)...quite warm/hot and humid in these parts.  So that is why we keep records...to simply verify what the past has been.  Below is a table of the high & low temps along with the precip data for the last July 4ths back to 1990.  A quick perusal of the data indicates that when temps remain cooler than normal, precip is most likely involved. By the way, mathematically, the mean max for the data shown is 86.5.

Today's holiday will be below normal in terms of temps.  Currently as I sit here and type this out, temps are typical for early am in these parts for this time of year.  Maybe even slightly warmer due to the clouds and light rain falling at present...

And the 2 weak areas of low pressure and their associated frontal boundaries to the south and west of PA at this time will translate north and east as we celebrate America this weekend.  Here is the current surface map...

And today's official forecast for KMDT has a high temp of 70ºF with a few showers about.  In fact, from all of the ensemble members of the GFS, the highest temp I can find is 75ºF for today.  So it appears that the 2015 version of July 4 will be much below normal in terms of temperature.

And this area of rain will need to progress to the north and east before Sunday's much more summer-like weather will dawn.

Looking a bit further out in time, the cooler than normal scenario looks as if it just might play out more often than not in this upcoming month of July.  Next Monday's lows according to the GFS will be quite cool in these parts...

In fact, looking at the upper air prog, it could get quite cool and unsettled if there is more of a "phasing" or deepening of the trough which I believe is likely to occur.  The area of cool to the north looks to be too far east.  So if it is slowed, the equatorward dip in the isobars will be much more pronounced here in the eastern CONUS.

The Euro is in agreement to some extent...but it keeps the cool pool aloft back maybe too far west.  Time will tell!

Interestingly, the meteogram for KCXY does not show a 90ºF for the next 10 days...low to mid 80s are not too hard to take IMO...I do believe there will be a bit more rainfall than the GFS kicks out however.

Here is a graphic of the 5 day means centered on next weekend...cooler than normal is clearly the signal.

And how about the climate model for the month of July...same signal...

So there you have it.  On this July 4, 2015 a quick discussion of the near term, medium range, and monthly ideas for temp and too some extent precip.  And since this is America thanks to the patriots who lived (and died) their dream of freedom and independence, I have the ability to spew this propaganda out for anyone to read if they choose to do so.  (And I appreciate those of you who do!) So I will leave you with one of my favorite patriotic tunes...and I hope you enjoy it as much as I.

Happy 4th y'all...

Smitty

AA:  A damp and cool 4th of July.  Plenty of mowing will continue as there is ample soil moisture and temps will be conducive to grass growing!  Os need to snap out of their funk.  Glad to see the Sox helped this past week!