Wednesday 27 June 2012

Looking at the Fall again

Looking at this again my best analogs are 2001,2006,1951,2009 and 1976. They look very close to my outlook from before with a slight shift of the cold core SE. Here is what my analogs look like:

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They seems to be showing an opposite signal from the modelling right now. They show cool west and warm east. I don't' know how much i can trust the IRI because they always have warm outlooks trying to back up there AGW agenda... wink.gif 
IRI:
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CFSv2 is not showing a great signal so we will have to look at SST's also:
Temps:
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SST's:
The central nino is a good sign at least which may be telling us that this fall is cooler then normal.
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Paul's latest October-December outlook(remember its not totally the fall). He thinks the ridge position will shift eastwards from august to septemeber and then continue shifting form october to december allowing the trough to dig into the west. I am not in full agreement with his ideas but we will see.
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BTW, the Euro shows B.C really dry from october to december as well as the CFSV2 and the IRI so watch out stuffradio! I will have a revised fall outlook when i get back form vacation in about 7 weeks. I will be off the forums starting tomorrow afternoon. 

Potential Heatwave/Busts June 27-july 4th


A battle ground will be setting up between the heat building in the south and the cooler air aloft (lower heights) from detroit to boston and northwards through Ottawa,Toronto and the great lakes region. Notice the heights lower then 576 in this area making it harder for temperatures to rise. Frequent cloudiness and thunderstorm activity is effecting parts of these areas and may expand. Plenty of energy is diving into the west, then moving over the central ridge before diving into the east and feeding into the trough and the boundary that is setting up. At my house today it is only 20 C and yesterday we were expected to reach 28 C. Doesn't look like that is going to happen.
500mb Heights Today:
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Tommorow morning we can see the same trend with plenty of energy in place and low enough heights at 500 mb. You look for the area at about the 5800 heights field for thunderstorm activity(where a boundary between cold and warm sets up). This is right over our areas. TWN has toronto at 32C and sunny with a humidex of 38C. I expect them to possibly have to bring down temperatures. This is a forecast with big risks. Will there be enough sun to keep temperatures up or will cloud cover get into the way again? The one thing they have going for them is the Euro which has heights a little bit higher in this area allowing surface temps to be about 2-3 degrees C higher which makes a difference. It doesn't have any precipitation in this area this weekend.

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The surface map off the 06z GFS shows more of this trend on friday(with more clusters of thunderstorms popping up) although it doesn't show thunderstorms on thursday at the surface. We will see what happens but if at key points in the day cloud cover gets into these areas temperatures could stay lower or heat could just last temporarily in the next few days. I would be surprised with a heatwave for areas like toronto or ottawa. Windsor is a maybe on this one. This is the opposite of last time when TWN had temps too low.

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More showers and storms on Saturday when TWN is forecasting temps above heatwave status.
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I'm not saying the heatwave won't happen but it just might not be as easy as we thought if the GFS has the right idea. If the euro is right then many areas will experience a heat wave. By sunday we can see thicknesses lowering quickly again in the east. I think this pattern may continue for a while in july because this is the pattern that we seem to be stuck in.

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Another question mark is later in the period around July the 5th. The trough in the west will amplify a little more allowing the ridge to back into the southwest. Will this allow the trough to amplify more into the east like this weeks trough or will it be a flatter trough? Will we see more of these strong troughs or just flat ones allowing for heat to build underneath? It is hard to tell because the modelling usually doesn't catch onto more amplitude until we get closer to the time period. My guess would be a stinger trough but not as strong as this weeks (somewhere in the middle).
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Tuesday 26 June 2012

Saskatchewan Tornadoes

Nice dry line setting up at 700mb, CAPE value over 4000j/kg in spots, strong wind shear is definitely there. Daytime heating should be able to break the moderate cap in place. I think areas at greatest risk are Southern Saskatchewan, North Dakota and into western Manitoba possibly later on. EHI values are supportive for weak to moderate tornadoes across central and southern saskatchewan as well as near the manitoba border and into north dakota. As expected tornado warnings and watches out for areas in saskatchewan. Nasty cell moved through the davidson area just south east of saskatoon. I suspect we will see a tornado out of this, strong rotation was found in this cell.
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Another squall line and several very severe cells near medicine hat, looks like a very dangerous situation for many in saskatchewan...
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July Outlook and Analogs

June departures so far have the mean ridge across the rockies and southwestern u.s and well as more ridging across the arctic/hudson bay area. We can see more troughiness in the pacific northwest as well as the great lakes, northeastern u.s, ontario and quebec.
500mb pattern so far:

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Surface temperature anomalies show near normal in ontario and quebec, slightly below normal in B.C and above normal anamolies in the rockies and northern quebec where ridging showed up.
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My analogs for june match up nicely with the current pattern showing pretty much the same signals at the surface and 500mb. I double weighted 2001 because it was the most similar to this year. These years are all neutral years that share similarities to the current pattern.
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This is what my analogs have for july which mimics my thoughts for july. Core of heat in the rockies and could migrate slightly to the east and west. We may be exposed to shots of heat but not long lasting ones. Also we will see some fronts and cool shots coming down causing complexes of t-storms. Overall near normal.:
July surface:
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500mb:
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Monday 25 June 2012

NAEFS Update


0z NAEFS 8-14 day(from the 2nd to the 8th) shows above normal for the east which means that after this potential heat wave or at least above normal stretch later this week there may be more warm to follow(slightly above normal temperatures) before a grand finale in mid july (between the 10th and 20th) and then a trend towards cooler weather for the remainder of july and august.

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MJO:
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Temperature composites show very warm especially for montreal and ottawa eastwards.
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False Prophets of the Season

This year has been a year with several "false prophets of the seasons". For example the march severe weather outbreak broke many records for earliest amount of tornadoes ETC and led everyone to believe that we would shave a huge severe weather season(because that would be the natural reaction that people have). A few months later we can see that tornadoes have clearly levelled off and this ended up a near average year for severe weather(nothing special about it) after high expectation from the early spike that you can see in march.


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The next false prophet was the early march "heat wave" which set off an extremely early spring and allowed plants and trees to start blooming before they are used too. Record heat gripped much of the eastern part of the country for weeks on end. After this everyone though spring was here to stay until several cold days along with hard freezes killed much of the apple and cherry crop in ontario as well as peaches in ohio and michigan. Many other flowers were damaged and plants destroyed. This was followed by an unusually cold end to the month with a late season snowstorm producing over 20cm of snow i the orangeville area. Toronto received some snow on april 27th as well.

March:
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April:
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The third false prophet I believe will occur is the hurricane activity we are seeing in the atlantic which is having an unusually fast start due to the upcoming el nino which allows for frequent troughs to stay put in the gulf and carribean. Types of seasons where we see this have a lot of early seaosn in close development but no african wave train development. These season will have above normal activity but our season will fall below normal despite recent thoughts otherwise. It just wouldn't make sense of this season to be above normal. The african wave train is getting destroyed because of the cold water off the coast of africa. We also have the disrupted indian monsoon season due to the negative IOD in the north of australia which makes it harder for energy to move into and off the coast of africa. Also we are seeing a lot of dry air in this area which is eating at any energy trying to get by.

Taking a look at a few analog years for el nines after double ninas we can see the early season activity but less activity overall.
1957 had audrey on june 14th but notice much less then normal activity;
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2003 had very early season development but was normal overall.

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1951 is one of my best analogs with able (a major hurricane) effecting the bahamas and north carolina early on. These examples show how things that have happen before are sure to happen again. The 1950's share the most similarities to current time due to the negative PDO but positive AMO.
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The last false prophet will be the heat which has come early in june and up to mid july but will take a turn around as the el nino comes on which will try to usher in some cooler then normal air in to the great lakes area.