Saturday, June 4, 2011

4 June, 2011

My thoughts, ideas, photos and videos can also be seen on Facebook & Twitter. Like and follow to keep informed!

TODAY'S TOP WEATHER STORIES
On Weather & Climate Through the Eyes of Mark Vogan

Alexi Rule (left) and her mother, Shonni Rule, use an umbrella and a poncho to stay dry while walking along the Embarcadero on their way to AT&T Park during a rainstorm in San Francisco on Saturday

California's June Oddity
THE WEATHER CHANNEL

No Drought Relief in Texas, New Mexico
ACCUWEATHER.COM

India Monsoon Advancing Quickly North
ACCUWEATHER.COM

Arizona Wildfires Force Evacuations
THE WEATHER CHANNEL

Photo: Daily News

Photo: Daily News

TODAY'S WEATHER ACROSS AMERICA By Mark Vogan

Unusual West Coast System


It sure has been a season of contrasts across the United States when considering the non-stop stormy pattern Out West, The heat and drought across the Southern Plains and the record wet pattern over the Midwest, boy, what next?

Well for this time of year, we see an unusually deep and far south, trough sit just off the Bay Area of California and this is feeding moisture in via a low. This moisture slamming against the ragged hills where the coast meets the ocean is producing copious amounts of rain in what is usually the first of the arid summer season. Only 0.44 inches of rain should be expected in San Francisco for ALL OF JUNE but with the pattern of late and just now, over an inch of rain has fallen and more is likely.

The upper-level trough is drawing in cold air aloft and thus helping in the rainfall production all the way to just north of Los Angeles. That is amazing for June.
so what next for this low? After spending today spinning offshore and feeding moisture into the Bay Area and southeastwards down the coast and inlanfd towards the Central Valley where thunderstorms may pop, we will see the low move east and inland, loikely bringing with it, yet more rain through Sunday, Monday and Tuesday to places further east. 


Record Rains in San Francisco


Over 1 inch of rain has fallen on the City of San Francisco breaking a daily record for today's date. Interestingly, only 3 years in the last 10 have reported an measurable rain for the month of June and it's not been since 1966 where there has been over an inch of rain fall. Amazing, there has been over an inch and it's only the first few days of June so an all-time record of 1.34 inches may be in jeapordy this year. So far and as of 3pm PT today, 1.12 inches of rain have been recorded in SF.

and record heat....


The very hot conditions continues in a large triangle over the country. If you notice from the map above. 100s showed up over the Deserts as well as the mid South with a large area of 90s showing up. The 90s actually went as far north as Chicago with the near 100-degree spread reaching up into Illinois which made today more like mid July and not the first few days of June.

Why has it been so hot?

A lot of it has to do with the La Nina of the past winter which favoured a drier than normal pattern across the South. The extreme drought that's been building all year has spread east and across the South, all the way through Florida. It's been persistently hot over the past couple of months and the higher the air temperature gets, the more the soils beneath dry up.

At this point, we typically see pressures rise across this region and latitude but thanks to those dry soils, the pressures are much stronger than normal and this supports hotter surface temperatures from El Paso to New Orleans all the way into central Florida. The drier the air is, the hotter it can get as more of the sun's rays go into heating the ground, than than evaporation of of the moisture floating in the air, so the soil and atmosphere has fed off one anotherm pumping much stronger 'heights' in the atmosphere through rapid evaporation of the soils and this has supported hotter and hotter conditions at the surface across the Southern States.

TODAY'S WEATHER ACROSS UK & EUROPE By Mark Vogan

Continental Europe now in a classic summer pattern with hot sun and PM T-Storms

Upper level pattern for Sunday

Over this weekend and into the new workweek, we have multiple areas of upper level energy which will be the trigger mechanism for widespread showers and thunderstorm development. Yes, we're now at that stage in the year when pressures are strong and forcing a lot of daytime heating across most of the European landmass.

Pieces of energy are feeding in from the UK as well as out of the southwest off Morrocco and Algeria. These are upper levels features and don't tend to break down much of the heating process at the surface and there is plenty of sunshine. These features are only noticeable when clouds form and build into thunderstorms in the afternoon and from Spain up through France, Germany, Poland, The Balkans to Russia we will see the presence of these upper level features when showers and T-storms pop. The strong June sun continues to build heat over the continent with central and eastern countries rising into the 28 to 30C range in most spots with locales nearer to the Med coast warming into the 32 to 34C range making for perfect vacation weather!

The upper level energy however creates a layer of cool air and with the combo of strong surface heat which forces strong upward motion, a large coverage of thunderstorm development will occur. This is a summery regime and not widespread rains, cloud and cool temps. The cooling will be had where those thunderstorms popup and heavy, torrential downpours occur but these occur within a hot, steamy environment...

SUBSTANTIAL TROUGH AND LOW SWEEPS OVER UK AND OVER WESTERN MAINLAND THROUGH NEXT WEEK

Upper level pattern for Tuesday

For Scotland, temperatures are well down from Friday's balmy mid-20s and incidentally skies have lost their brilliant blue. They've reverted to sun, then clouds then filtered sun and back to clouds. It appears we are set for a wetter, windier week ahead as a sizable, stronger upper low sweeps across the UK through Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. This deepening trough will pull cold upper level air down and we could see chilly highs perhaps only ranging from 11-13C over Scotland and north of England as well as heavy rains, strong winds and coastal gales around Tuesday, Wednesday at the same time, temperatures fall even across France and into Spain.

I shall discuss the longer term in tomorrow's post!

THE EXTREMES OF THE DAY

TODAY'S US EXTREMES
COURTESY OF ACCUWEATHER

HIGH: 104 degrees at Milton, FL
LOW: 19 degrees at West Yellowstone, WY

TODAY'S UK EXTREMES
COURTESY OF THE MET OFFICE

HIGH: 83 degrees (28.1C) at Solent
LOW: 41 degrees (5C) at Lantran

TODAY'S GLOBAL EXTREMES
COURTESY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF COLOGNE

HIGHEST

47C (117F) in far north central Mali near Algeria border
46C (115F) at Larkana & Sibbi, Pakistan (Asia)
46C (115F) at Kiffa, Mauritinia (Africa)

TODAY'S EXTREMES HERE AT MY HOUSE

HIGH: 60 degrees
LOW: 46 degrees

Thanks for reading.
-Mark

No comments:

Post a Comment


My Ping in TotalPing.com