Saturday Summary

Trough will dig a little dipper into the east producing 1 below normal day on monday and a rainy sunday as the cold front pushes through. Overall we will not see that much cooling form this trough but just near normal departures from today to wednesday. A very strong ridge is centered over the eastern rockies and the plain states which is producing 35 C+ degree heat throughout texas, oklahoma, arkansas, colorado, kansas,arizona,misouri and louisiana. As you can see the heat is over a large area. By tuesday 40 C degree heat will extend all the way from texas north to wyoming! This ridge will then midgrate eastwwards for a short period of time(before a cold fornt moves through ushering in cool air) producing a quick 2 day heat surge into southern and eastern ontario next thursday and friday. Saturday will still be hot for places like montreal and quebec city but not western areas in ontario. The GTA has the potential to reach 30 on thursday and then possibly 33 on friday. I think what is developing now is what we are going to see as we go forward this summer. The southern plains are have been drying out lately allowing for very warm temperatures(a warm source region) where the ridge axis is centered and anyone under the ridge. I believe the ridge will stay fairly strong quite often although not as strong as the recent one. The ridge will produce heat for the northern plains and mid sections of the u.s and will tend to migrate eats or west at times (but not frequently). In my summer forecast I made it clear that prolonged heat would not be a problem this summer although the potential is there for a few above normal days before a cool down. The reason the Euro has so much heat under this ridge is because it brings debby under the ridge and not off to the east and near the florida coast. Hurrricanes are meant to move the transfer the heat from the tropics to the polar regions and therefore it pushes a lot of heat (possibly record breaking) out in front of it under the strong ridge developing in the southern plains. The GFS is less aggressive on the heat because of where it moves the storm. The track of this storms will be very key to seeing if we can get are 2 days of heat. If the GFS is right it won't be as hot, if the euro is right then we may see a near repeat performance of this week although only 2 days long in southern and possibly eastern ontario. After this time period it appears as though more frequent troughs and more average temperatures will rule ontario and the east while the ridge weakens. By july the 10th-15th we are going to have to deal with the most prolonged heatwave of the season(which i have been mentioning now for weeks) possibly lasting 7-10 days. Before I though it would come earlier but the MJO has slowed down slightly pushing the timing back. This years MJO phase shares many similarities wiht 2006 as well as enso phase and the overall pattern. This is what it looked like from july 13th 2006 to july 22nd. This may be what it will look like during july this year with a lot of heat surging up into the great lakes,ohio valley,midwest,ontario, northern plains and even the east coast.

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