Winter 2011-2012 Outlook

Here are some early thoughts about what Winter 2011-2012 may bring to central Kentucky.  Please remember that it's still early Fall...and we've got a long way to go before we are truly into Winter.  The holiday season is almost upon us though (Halloween, Turkey Day, CHRISTmas, and the New Year) so let's at least explore the possibilities for what could be coming up.

Let me start off by showing you what the official government outlook is currently predicting for Winter, courtesy of the fine folks at the Climate Prediction Center.  You'll see that the temperatures are forecast to be normal for us.  So whatever the typical temperatures are for the given month we are in...that's what they are forecasting that we will see.  Precipitation however is forecast to be considerably above normal.  In fact, they have drawn a bullseye of precipitation right on top of Kentucky in their maps.  Take a look and then we'll talk about why the maps look like they do.

One of the contributing factors to our weather last Winter was La Nina.  This typically causes the jet stream to hang out in the midwest section of the nation, and that in turn steers a lot of storm systems into the Ohio Valley.  That's one reason we had lots of frequent snows last year.  La Nina is predicted to redevelop this Winter, and the last charts I saw indicated that it could become a fairly strong La Nina pattern.  So most climatologists myself included believe that the jet stream will once again spend a lot of time dividing the nation through it's heart, rather than staying south of us like we typically see.  For this reason, temperatures are expected to stay seasonable through the Ozarks and into the Ohio Valley.  "Seasonable" for Kentucky still means cold...just not abnormally cold for extended periods of time.

With precipitation the position of the jet comes into play once again.  Just as last year brought frequent weather systems, this year is expected to be similar.  With the average position of the jet expected to be in the nation's mid section, a lot of moisture should be able to pool into the Ohio Valley on southerly winds.  As weather systems fly in on the atmospheric flow from the west and run into this feature, precipitation should be common here in Kentucky.  One fear is that with the war zone between warm southerly air to our south and cold polar air to our north being parked over the Ohio Valley with this jet stream, we could end up in the zone of "wintry mix" type weather.  Therefore, this Winter will have an increased risk of ice storms here.

The overall weather experienced for us in a nutshell should be normal in terms of temperatures, but perhaps not quite as many cloudy depressing days as we usually see thanks to the jet keeping systems moving through in the flow.  But with that will also come some heavy rains, and possibly heavy snows or ice storms from time to time.  I don't think it'll be a boring Winter by any means.  Cold snaps to go along with warm spells, and sunshine to go along with clouds, snow, and rain.  I'll take that deal, as I really hate the Winters that keep us cloudy all the time.

Just to jog your memory, last year October was nice in terms of temps and rainfall.  Very similar to what we are seeing this month.  By November, we were seeing wild swings in the weather.  And by December the bottom fell completely out.  We finished December 2010 with a monthly average of 26 degrees in Lawrenceburg, which is well below where we should have been and set records.  So it can go downhill quickly.  Don't let this month's nice weather fool you.

Now, here is the fly in the ointment.  Since February, every single month in 2011 has been wet in Lawrenceburg with above normal rainfall.  I am a firm believer that nature always keeps a balance, and some drier than normal months are coming ahead.  There is no question about that.  The question is when?  Will these dry months show up this Winter or will we see a continuation of this active pattern until late Spring or Summer turns into a drought?  I suppose time will tell.  I think that regardless, the coming Winter is going to be a fun one.

By Thanksgiving, I will update this outlook with the latest model data and we'll try to nail down what Winter will hold for us this season.  Have a good one...

-Shawn

Hurricane Irene and thoughts on Labor Day weekend

Here is a good video from the guys and gals over at Accuweather.com showing the latest on Irene:

Irene update - Thursday night

My thoughts on Irene...  

This is a very dangerous storm.  I am still maintaining my thoughts that Irene will hit Cat. 4 status on Friday as she moves into completely open waters off the coast of Georgia that are in excess of 90 degrees.  Water this warm will not only sustain Irene, but allow her to strengthen.  Currently, she's a Cat. 3 storm and has been maintaining this strength for quite some time now.  There won't be any problem for her to move up another level on the Saffir-Simpson scale tomorrow.

Then on Saturday the fun and games begin.  Because Irene is moving due north, she will run parallel to the coast.  The problem with this is that we'll see a lot of water flowing in directions that coastal residents are not used to.  This storm, because of it's trajectory, is going to create an enormous flooding problem for millions of people.  The wind will be destructive, sure.  But the water is going to be the biggest problem.  We've seen other hurricanes before move into New England and cause mass destruction, but they were not as powerful as Irene is capable of being.  If the current model data on this storm comes true, you're going to see the biggest natural disaster in the mid-Atlantic coast and New England than we've seen in our lifetimes.  I urge anyone on the east coast to take evacuation orders seriously and please leave.  If you have family on the coast or near the coast, please try to convince them to leave.  You don't want to be anywhere near the east coast this weekend, and you don't want to wait until Friday night to try and leave either because the interstates will be jammed.

The ocean waters cool off drastically as you head north toward New York City, so it is likely that Irene will lose power quickly on Sunday, but the damage will still be done.  Right now all we can do is pray that the model data is incorrect and some wild, unexpected change in track occurs with this storm.

In Kentucky, the hurricane is going to bring northerly winds to us this weekend.  We'll be in that area of subsidence, or sinking air, on the western flank of the system.  This will result in dry, cool, and less humid conditions for us all weekend.  Enjoy it!

As we head into next weekend, the Labor Day holiday looks to come in HOT.  The medium range modeling is showing a strong ridge building back into the eastern U.S., similar to what we saw during July.  This should result in temperatures heading back into the 90s and the first week or two of September should be a hot one around here.

This latest run of the GFS model shows that an active area of thunderstorms could be knocking on the door by Monday (the actual holiday):

You can see that we are firmly entrenched in the 30+ degree temps (Celcius) here in the Southeast, which translates to 90-95 degree heat wherever there are not t-storms.  But that front moving into the MS River valley looks to have a punch, so we might see some nasty weather to knock the temps. back down for a couple of days immediately after Labor Day.

The Summer Outlook has worked out great.  We've seen heat.  We've seen days in the 70s.  We've seen occasional rain to keep the drought away.  And now we're seeing Jim Cantore on TWC about to pee himself from excitement over the tropics coming to life.  I couldn't be happier with that forecast.

Just a teaser..  but Winter could shape up to be epic this year.  Stay tuned.  ;o)

-Shawn

Severe Thunderstorm Watch

More severe weather is moving into KY following the round of damage we had this morning.  A Severe Thunderstorm Watch is posted until midnight.  Here is a look at the counties in the Watch box:

After this round of storms passes tonight, much drier air should filter in and tomorrow looks to be a gorgeous day.

The blog has been taking a break in this boring Summer pattern..  but will be up cranking again as we head into Fall.  So far, things are working out pretty well for my Summer Outlook.

-Shawn

Can it get hotter than this?

Here is the SPC outlook for tomorrow.  Almost all of Kentucky is in the Slight Risk zone for severe thunderstorms.  Hopefully, we will indeed see storms because they will temper the heat a little.  But keep in mind that any storms that do develop will be able to go severe and cause damage.

Check out this pic from right here in Lawrenceburg this afternoon.  Wow.  If you remember, 11 months ago we were seeing heat index readings in the 120s!  I don't recall ever seeing heat index readings that high in Kentucky before.  Well, today we are approaching those numbers.  This is DANGEROUS heat.  Please take this seriously.  People die in the heat every year unexpectedly.

The NWS has a Heat Advisory in effect Tuesday for the bluegrass counties.  Everybody along and west of I65 is under an Excessive Heat WARNING.

Take care out there.

-Shawn

Summer 2011 Outlook

At the end of March, I wrote an outlook for Spring that predicted a very active severe weather season in this part of the country.  Unfortunately for many, this prediction was spot-on.  In fact, even more so than I expected.  From Minneapolis, to Joplin, to Birmingham...severe weather ripped the nation apart.  Right here in Kentucky we recorded dozens of tornadoes and set new records for rainfall and flooding.  The tornado in Joplin, MO set a new record for most lives taken by a single tornado in U.S. history.  Just two weeks ago we saw Kentucky’s two largest cities, Louisville and Lexington, both go under tornado warnings within a 24 hour period.  Spring was a wild season and we probably won’t see anything quite like it in many years to come.

I’m running about a month late, because hurricane season technically began on June 1^st, and astronomical Summer began on June 21^st, but I’m going to give this a whirl anyway seeing as how we are just now getting into the real pattern of Summer.  The question is, after the kind of Spring we just had where does Summer go from here?

I think that Summer in Kentucky this year will be slightly different than what we’ve seen in recent years.  For the same reasons that Spring was so wild, Summer will likely stay a little wetter and a little cooler on average than what we’re used to lately.  During a La Nina cycle, the jet stream generally moves northward.  Rather than hanging out along the Gulf coast, it will tend to spend a lot of time flowing across the Midwest and into the Great Lakes.  This alters the storm track and pulls moisture northward into the Ohio Valley and also steers the storm systems our way.  This resulted in a terribly active severe weather season in our part of the world.  We are now seeing the La Nina (cooling waters of the Pacific equatorial region) start to weaken a little and we’re going back toward neutral.  But coming off a La Nina cycle I still think that the overall storm track may continue to bring occasional rainfall to Kentucky through the Summer.  This is not to say that we won’t have dry periods or hot days.  I do think though that the average temperatures will stay in check, and we won’t see a severe drought this Summer.  Remember 2007?  That was a horribly dry and hot Summer with almost zero rainfall for several months.  Summer 2010 wasn’t very fun either.  We saw many days in August last year with heat index readings in the 120s.  I’ve never seen heat index readings that high in Kentucky before in my life.  I do not think we will see a repeat of this in 2011.  I think that overall, Summer 2011 will be a very average Summer statistically and the really intense heat and drought will stay away.

Another consideration is the hurricane season.  Coming off a La Nina cycle, it is very possible that the upper level high that we saw in place last year will not establish itself as persistently this year.  Last year we saw no hurricanes strike the U.S. coastline.  Most storms that tried to invade the Caribbean and threaten the U.S. coast were sheared apart by the intense high pressure aloft that hung out in the Caribbean all Summer and Fall.  With the general location of the jet stream retreated slightly northward, and the historical removal of this upper level high in the Gulf region that we see with La Nina, I think it’s very possible that this year we could have more hurricanes.  Not only this, but those hurricanes will be able to penetrate into the Gulf region and grow stronger as they move into a position where they could threaten the U.S. coast.  I doubt that it’ll be a 2005 type season all over again, but it should shape up to be more active than average in the Atlantic.  How does this relate to Kentucky?  Well, much of the rainfall we receive in September and October comes from the remnants of tropical systems.  The same storms that devastate the Gulf coast are the ones that provide relief and rainfall to the southeastern states during what is typically the driest season of the year.  If we do indeed see a more active hurricane season this year, that could also translate into additional rainfall for Kentucky as some of these systems will pass their remnants over or near the Commonwealth.

So there you have it...if everything comes together as expected I think Summer will be less extreme and more normal for what we should see this time of year.  There will be days in the 70s to go along with those days in the 90s.  There’ll be rain here and there to keep the ground from drying out too bad.  And we’ll see a lot of Jim Cantore on The Weather Channel.  I hope this forecast works out well, for the farmers’ sake.

Just for kicks, I looked up the official Summer outlook put together by the Climate Prediction Center.  They are expecting "climatology" to be the rule... which basically means that Summer will be very average in their opinion.  Neither drier than normal nor wetter than normal, neither hotter nor cooler than normal.  Just a very typical KY Summer.  Not too far from what I'm expecting.  Here are their charts:

Temperature:

Precipitation:

-Shawn