July 29: Withering Heat/Drought Shifts To Plains/Rockies This Week

Hot, But Not Ridiculously Hot. All the models keep us in the 80s today, but we should reach low 90s Monday (mid-90s not out of the question). A wind shift cools us down (slightly) Tuesday before heating into the low and mid 90s again Wednesday.

Hints Of Relief. No promises (there never are), but the ECMWF is suggesting 70s by next weekend - a real cool front which may provide 48-72 hours of relief. A fairly dry week is on tap, the best chance of showers and T-storms Friday, as Canadian air approaches.

Nagging Warm Bias. Although NOAA CPC's 6-10 Day temperature outlook shows the worst of the heat shifting across the Plains into the Rockies, the extended outlook for August (upper right) shows a warm bias for much of the USA, the center of the heat forecast over the Middle Mississippi Valley and the Ohio Valley, complicating any recovery from the drought for much of the Corn Belt.

Converted Skeptic. "Call me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified scientific issues that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Now, after organizing an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I’ve concluded that global warming is real, that the prior estimates of the rate were correct, and that cause is human....Our results show that the average temperature of the Earth’s land has risen by two and a half degrees Fahrenheit over the past 250 years, and one and a half degrees Fahrenheit over the most recent 50 years. Moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this increase is due to the human emission of greenhouse gases."
- excerpt of a forthcoming New York Times Op-Ed from former climate skeptic, Richard Muller, lead author of the "BEST" (Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature) project. Details at The New York Times below.

Withering Drought. Here's a post from the Hastings, Nebraska office of the National Weather Service: "Where's the water for swimming in the Platte?"

Expanding Drought. Here's an entry from the Pleasant Hills, Missouri office of the NWS, via Facebook: "Curious how the drought has progressed since early June? We've constructed a "drought progress map" focused on changes to the drought status from June 5th through the latest drought monitor update on July 24."

5-Day Rainfall Outlook. The best chance of some .5 to 1" rainfall amounts: northern Minnesota and the U.P. of Michigan. New England looks showery, monsoon rains spreading across Arizona - the heaviest rains over the Carolinas, where up to 4" of rain is predicted. No rain is expected for the Southern Plains and the far western USA. Map: NOAA HPC.

UK Ensemble Olympic Showcase. The U.K. Met Office has created some special high-res models and graphics showing hour-by-hour rain chances for the Olympic Games in London. More details: "An animated probabilistic rainfall forecast. The forecast spans a 30 hour period and is divided into hourly steps. Each frame shows the chance that rain (greater than 0.2 mm/h) will fall sometime within a 1 hour time window displayed on the image. No information is provided on the duration of rainfall — it could last for the full hour or just a few minutes. The product giving the chance of more than 30 minutes of rain in an hour should be used to find out if it is likely to be mostly wet or not."

"Ask Paul". Weather-related questions, rants and assorted threats:

Paul,

"A couple of days ago, you mentioned that you expected highs in the low 70s by the end of next week. Now you're predicting 90s! What's responsible for the huge swing in the forecast? Is it beyond reason to hope for an early end to this summer from hell? Those of use without air conditioning are really suffering."

Jack Delehanty

Minneapolis

Jack - I tried to answer your question below, in the main weather column for Sunday. It won't come as much of a shock when I tell you that long-range forecasting is more art than science. I based my cooler forecast (for next weekend) on the ECMWF (European) model, which has been doing a pretty good job in recent months, better than most of the U.S. models - but still not perfect. This just in: there will never be a "perfect" long range forecast. As new data comes in the forecast changes, new data initiatlizing the weather models 4 times/day. Maddening? Yes, but look for trends over time - are the models getting wetter, drier, warmer or cooler over time? Is there general agreement among (all) models are is the meteorologist going out on a limb with one specific model? 

I believe the worst of the heat is behind us now. We will see more 90-degree days, probably another 8-12 by late September, but the odds of 100-degree heat are dropping now with each passing day. The heat wave anchored over Kansas City has been remarkably persistent for 6 weeks now, but it's showing signs of shrinking and shifting south in early August. The boundary separating blast-furnace heat from cool, Canadian air is slowly migrating south over time, and I stand by the forecast - I still think we'll see some temporary relief from the 90s by next weekend; maybe a couple days in the 70s to near 80.

Fiery Dusk. Thanks to Gregory Scott Potter for sending this photo along.

Olympics Weather: Cool & Soggy. Click here to see the latest extended forecast for London from Ham Weather. Highs will be in the 60s through Friday with frequent showers, possible thunder. Typical weather for Great Britain.

 

 * photo above courtesy of Steve Burns.

35

That's how many 90-degree days I'm predicting for the Endless Summer of '12. Average is 13. The natives are restless. 

Jack Delehanty from Minneapolis writes "A couple of days ago you mentioned that you expected highs in the low 70s by the end of next week. Now you're predicting 90s! What's responsible for the huge swing in the forecast? Is it beyond reason to hope for an early end to this summer from hell? Those of us without air conditioning are really suffering."

I feel your pain. I too am without A/C. 

I get it.

The 7-day Outlook always gyrates as new model data arrives. That's not an excuse, just meteorological reality.

Another hot week is on tap, but it won't be nearly as torrid as a few weeks ago.

I'm seeing the boundary between cool 70s and sizzling 100s shifting south over time. That should mean a welcome cool front next weekend.

The trend: more frequent breaks from the (insane) heat & humidity.

Morning showers may give way to 90 today: I expect 2-3 more days above 90 by Friday.

At least we're seeing SOME rain. Drought-plagued Indianapolis residents have given up; many are spray-painting their lawns green. 

Yes Jack; it could be a lot worse.

Climate Stories...

 

New Global Temperature Reanalysis Confirms Warming; Blames CO2. Here's an excerpt of an Op-Ed from a (former) climate skeptic, Richard Muller at The New York Times "Richard Muller, the head of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, will publish an op/ed next week in the New York Times summarizing his group's findings with regard to global temperature trends. From a copy of the op/ed, Converted Skeptic, circulating on the web: CALL me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified scientific issues that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Now, after organizing an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I’ve concluded that global warming is real, that the prior estimates of the rate were correct, and that cause is human."

 

 

 

Bombshell: Koch-Funded Study Finds "Global Warming Is Real", "On The High End" And "Essentially All" Due To Carbon Pollution. An excerpt from Joe Romm at Think Progress: "...Yes, yes, I know, the finding itself is “dog bites man.” What makes this “man bites dog” is that Muller has been a skeptic of climate science, and the single biggest funder of this study is the “Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation ($150,000).” The Kochs are the leading funder of climate disinformation in the world!

It gets better:

Our results show that the average temperature of the earth’s land has risen by two and a half degrees Fahrenheit over the past 250 years, including an increase of one and a half degrees over the most recent 50 years. Moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases.
These findings are stronger than those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations group that defines the scientific and diplomatic consensus on global warming."

Graphic credit above: "The decadal land-surface average temperature using a 10-year moving average of surface temperatures over land. Anomalies are relative to the Jan 1950 – December 1979 mean. The grey band indicates 95% statistical and spatial uncertainty interval.” A Koch-funded reanalysis of 1.6 billion temperature reports finds that “essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases.”

Climate Change Could Erode Ozone Layer Over U.S. Here's an excerpt from a blog at smithsonian.com: "For the past 25 years, it seemed that we’d pretty much solved the ozone problem. In the 1970s and 80s, people around the world grew increasingly alarmed as research revealed that chemicals we were producing—such as CFCs, used in refrigeration— had started destroying the crucial ozone layer, high up in the atmopshere, that protects us from the sun’s harmful UV radiation. In response, world governments came together to sign the Montreal Protocol in 1987, which phased out the production of ozone-depleting chemicals. The concentration of these chemicals in the atmosphere leveled off within a decade. Yesterday, though, Harvard scientists hit us with some bad news: It looks as if climate change could actually cause the depletion of the ozone layer to resume on a wide scale, with grim implications for the United States."

Image credit above: "Climate change could produce an ozone hole over the U.S. similar to the one observed over Antarctica, above, in 2006." Image via NASA.

Following The Isotopes Leads Scientists To Useful Climate Change Data. Here's a snippet of an article at The Prairie Star: "Rebecca Phillips is working this summer in the blooming alfalfa fields at the ARS-Northern Great Plains Research Laboratory south of Mandan, N.D., measuring trace gases that have been associated with climate change. The ARS plant physiologist has been conducting this work for the past few years and has collected useful data for producers. Phillips said her goal in studying these gases is to give producers information on how they can be productive and profitable using the best conservation management practices that reduce gas emissions."

Photo credit above: "Rebecca Phillips, plant pathologist at ARS-Northern Great Plains Research Laboratory, works out in the fields in Australia studying carbon fluxes with other scientists."

  Readers Jump Into The Climate Fray. Here's an excerpt from an interesting article at The New York Times (focused on reader response to a series of recent NYT article on climate change posing new risks to aging infrastructure and how extreme storms and higher water vapor levels may be impacting Earth's ozone layer): "...Other readers e-mailed directly with their thoughts. Rick Eisenstat, a former Navy officer, weighed in on the question of whether climate change presents a real and present danger to the United States and the world. “In fact,” Mr. Eisenstat wrote, “the military has already answered that it is. This determination is often absent from the national debate but the impact it can have on it — and the country at large — is significant.” He said the American military was leading the way in energy conservation efforts to save money and reduce threats to supply lines. These efforts are having a significant impact on greenhouse gas emissions, said Mr. Eisenstat, now a law student at Tulane University."