A dry and fairly comfortable Sunday.

 This will be a quick post that covers the overall weather setup for this week.

Today the temperature is a little cooler, and humidity is way down from what it was!

 

 

Surface chart and radar.

We can see that upper-level low over central into eastern Canada. With a strong ridge over the Southeast extending toward the Southeast US.  

That heat dome in the Southwest is going to move into the Plains.  As has been the case all summer, thunderstorm complexes are going to rotate around that high pressure ridge. The flow between the two dominate features, is going to direct these complexes into the northern Plains and then drop south and east across the Midwest.  The setup means that the Northeast is going to be sitting under a trough during this week.  

 

Tonight we’re going to see a very large thunderstorm complex (MCS) develop in the upper Midwest this will drop down into Indiana and Ohio. Tomorrow morning this could clip southwest Pennsylvania.  There will be the chance for some strong to severe thunderstorms, heavy rain, damaging winds, and frequent lightning are going to be the primary concerns. Tomorrow that cold /stationary front is going to push back north as a warm front, bringing with it a shower or thunderstorm. Temperatures will climb and humidity will start to climb. Then a cold front will drop in and will produce scattered showers and thunderstorms. 

 

Another complex of storms looks to drop into Western Pennsylvania on Tuesday. bringing the threat of damaging wind and heavy downpours leading to localized flooding.  Those with the greatest chance of seeing scattered thunderstorms and isolated severe storms will be across Pennsylvania, into the Southern Tier of New York State and across Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey.

 

Wednesday will see the cold front stall over the region with increasing clouds and showers and storms will fire Wednesday afternoon/evening. Some of these storms could be strong to severe. As will be the case tomorrow and Tuesday, those with the greatest chance for seeing severe storms will be across Pennsylvania into the rest of the northern Middle Atlantic.

Across New York State and New England, the weather will be unsettled for Monday thru Wednesday, widespread severe weather is unlikely, but there could be some isolated strong storms.

For Wednesday into the coming weekend, it will remain a bit unsettled. But a trough is going to drop into the region, allowing for below average temperatures and lower humidity.

 

 Tropical Atlantic

There are a couple of areas in the eastern and central Atlantic that the NHC is watching. The first wave has a 20% chance for development over the next 7 days, while the 2^nd coming off of Africa has a higher 50% chance.

Conditions are somewhat favorable for the next 48 to 60 hours.  Then we’re going to see wind shear, Saharan dust and dry air in the mid-levels develop. SSTs are below average, but there are pockets where SST are closer to 82°F. As this approaches the Caribbean conditions are going to be very unfavorable.

However, the first wave could indirectly influence the environment ahead of the second disturbance set to move off Africa early next week.

As the First wave moves through the Atlantic, it could clear out some of the dry air and dust allowing the environment ahead of the second wave somewhat more favorable. That will depend on how far north will be as it approaches the Lesser Antilles.

Both tropical waves are going to continue moving westward across the Atlantic, the overall setup doesn’t bode well for them, but it that second wave develops quick enough it has a shot as some development.  The ridging over the Southeast into Middle Atlantic could pull this toward the East Coast, then it would likely be forced north and east around that Northeast Ridge.  We will see how all of this goes, but I’m not expecting much out of these tropical waves.

 

 

It sure feels like the tropics.

This will be a very quick post

Surface chart and radar.

 

We have an upper-level low sitting over the Great Lakes into Canada. The surface chart shows that simi stationary front off to our west.  We also have that strong Bermuda High centered just offshore.  The clockwise circulation around that high is allowing high humidity and tropical moisture off the Southeast Coast and Gulf to move up the Coast.

Radar is showing rain showers and embedded thunderstorms ahead of that frontal boundary.

 

The Storm Prediction Center (SPC) has a Slight Risk from around New York City down across Southeast Pennsylvania, Northern New Jersey northern Delaware into Maryland. The Marginal Risk is from the NYS Southern Tier, Southwest Connecticut, the rest of Pennsylvania and points south and west.

The risk is there for a few strong to severe thunderstorms. But the risk for damaging winds isn’t the major concern. There is also a risk for frequent lightning and some hail. Winds at the surface are weak and variable, they generally stay that way aloft. With all the humidity in the air, we’re going to be prone to very heavy downpours. Weak winds mean any storms will be slow moving.  So, while a few storms will be capable of damaging wind gust, the real danger is going to be urban and flash flooding.

Here is a look at the NWS Weather Prediction Center excessive rainfall outlook for today and tomorrow. The general pattern looks to continue for next week.

The weekend is looking to be a rinse and repeat. Hazy-Hot-Humid with daily scattered showers and thunderstorms. The weekend won’t be a washout, with plenty of dry time. But showers and storms could pop up anytime.

It won’t be until we get toward the middle of August that this current pattern breaks down!

I encourage y’all to read my two El Nino post. These will be prominent to the weather discussion going forward especially for the winter outlook series starting in October. I will be releasing a part 3 covering the Super El Nino of 2015-2016, sometime over the next couple of weeks.

Part one

Part two

 

Have a great rest of your day!

The Drought and Tropics.

 Tropical conditions 

 

It’s been quite some time since I talked about the tropics. It has been very quiet, with only two tropical storms, Arthur and Bertha, which formed in the Gulf earlier this summer. It’s normal for the season to start off slow. But the strengthening El Nino is already having a big impact on the season. As I’ve said before El Nino brings greater wind shear over the Atlantic; typically, the stronger the El Ninos the more disrupting it will be.

 

The SST in the Atlantic Basin are also a big issue. SST in the Gulf are very warm, but that part of the basin has been dealing with very high wind shear.  The Caribbean isn’t as warm as the Gulf. And the Main Development Region (MDR), is quite cool. I talked about the Atlantic Nino in the first El Nino post a couple of weeks ago.  This is going to work hand in hand to suppress tropical cyclone formation in the Atlantic this season.

 

Our total ACE so far this season is only at 2.6 units. There is a lot of dry air and Saharan dust sitting over the Tropical Atlantic..

In the last El Nino post I did, I talked about how the 1982 hurricane season was extremely quiet. 1982 was a very strong El Nino, With the current El Nino looking to be one of, if not the strongest El Nino on the historic record. That is certainly a possibility for the 2026 hurricane season. 

 

We do have a couple of tropical waves over the Atlantic, these are being impacted by the dry air. The dry dusty air should stop any development from these.  The models are having a difficult time with the pattern; some have been indicating development. But the factors I’ve listed along with the MJO in phase 6 heading into phase 7 Isn’t a good phase for tropical activity in the Atlantic.  You really want it in phase 2 and 3. The JMA CHI200 anomalies chart agrees with the MJO and is showing sinking air over the Atlantic. Blue is rising air with increased tropical activity, yellow is sinking air with decreased tropical activity.     If the Atlantic is in the yellow, it doesn’t mean there can’t be tropical cyclones, it just means it is very difficult to get long track systems to approach the CONUS.

 

All of this means the Atlantic is going to continue to sleep for the foreseeable future.

 NOAA has updated their Hurricane Outlook for the rest of the 2026 season.  They have lowered their expectations and expect 7 to 13 named storms, 2 to 6 hurricanes, including 0 to 2 major (Category 3 or stronger) hurricanes this year.  This does bring them down near to the numbers I posted a few months ago.

Drought Outlook. 

The start of August has seen quite a bit of rain across the Middle Atlantic, Southeast New York State into Southern New England, helping improve the drought conditions affecting those parts of the region. But remember the drought monitor only considers rain that fell before Tuesday afternoon.

Extreme drought was erased across Delaware into Maryland. Severe drought was erased from parts of eastern Massachusetts. Moderate drought was removed from Connecticut and contracted in southeastern New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and southwestern New Hampshire. Abnormal dryness eased in parts of southeastern New York, Connecticut, western Rhode Island, and western Massachusetts. However, Western and Northern New York State Across New England has seen less rain that was very hit and miss, which has allowed drought conditions to see some intensification severe drought expanded in southeastern New Hampshire, while moderate drought spread in Maine and abnormal dryness was introduced or increased in coverage in northern Maine, northeastern Vermont, and northern New York.

 

The latest U.S. Drought Monitor released this morning showed 2% of New York State and New England in severe drought, 10% in moderate drought, and 22% as abnormally dry compared to 1%, 15%, and 18%, respectively, last week. 

 

Well that is it....have a great night!

Hot and humid through the weekend

 Today is going to feel very tropical, with high temperatures and humidity. These above average temperatures and muggy conditions will continue through the weekend.

Surface chart and radar.

The surface chart shows that approaching weakening cold front.  This will act as the focus for scattered showers and thunderstorms for today through Saturday, as the front inches through and falls apart.

 

 

Today the SPC has a Marginal Risk for severe weather stretching from northern Vermont into Viginia.  The main risk will be isolated gusty damaging winds and especially heavy rainfall. These heavy downpours could produce localized flooding. with the high humidity frequent lightning is also a concern. 

 

Tomorrow and Saturday will be a rinse and repeat, with high temperatures, high dewpoints, with scattered rain showers and thunderstorms.  For tomorrow the SPC has the Marginal Risk farther to the south, sitting over New Jersey, eastern Pennsylvania, and Maryland. Again, the main risk will be heavy downpours along with a risk for isolated damaging winds.

 

Sunday the trough will be hanging around, but it looks to be much drier than Saturday, but isolated rain showers and or a rogue thunderstorm will be possible.  Temperatures and humidity will be a little lower as well.

 For Monday a cold front will try to move into the region, but it falls apart. Monday will feature a chance for isolated showers and thunderstorms. Tuesday will see another cold front approach and move into the region.  This cold front will be weakening as it moves through, producing scattered rain showers and thunderstorms.  This cold front will stall to our south Tuesday night into Wednesday, then Wednesday night and Thursday it will move back north as a warm front, producing the chance for isolated showers, but many won’t see them.  A cold front will approach and move through later Thursday, bringing scattered showers and thunderstorms, some of these will be strong to severe.

Yesterday, I posted another post on the strengthen El Nino, with a look at the 1982-1983 Super El Nino. If you like, check it out.  The first winter outlook I release in October, will tie back into these earlier El Nino post. So having an understanding of them will be helpful.  

Have a great rest of your day!

A look at the Super El Nino of 1982-1983

Our last two winters were influenced by La Nina.  Those seasons brought repeated outbreaks of cold air to parts of the United States, though snowfall and precipitation varied from region to region. The transition to a potentially historic El Nino could dramatically shift storm tracks across North America. Even so, El Nino is only one factor that determines how a winter ultimately unfolds.

What’s going on right now?

Latest SST anomaly from Coral Reef Watch.

 

As I said in the last El Nino post, we’re in the arctic sea ice and glacial melt season. This is an important thing to keep an eye on.  The ice is going to continue to melt for the next 6 to 8 weeks; before it reverses. How much sea ice we can hang on to in the Bering and East Siberian Seas as well as the Arctic Ocean will be very important factor when we get closer to the coming winter.

 

Image curtesy of Tropical Tidbits

Currently Siberia and Alaska are seeing colder temperatures, this will help slow down the extent of ice melt for the short term, but as I said we’re going to see the ice continue to melt into the middle to end of September. Then the ice will reestablish itself. It remains to be seen how quickly that will happen.

 

Sea Ice extent around Alaska is a little less than it was that the same time in 2025.

 

El Nino continues to get stronger as we get deeper into hurricane season, with long-range outlooks showing that we're still on track to see potentially one of the strongest El Nino's on record this fall or winter.

Currently, the three-month average for the Nino 3.4 region is 1.5°C, which falls into the strong category.

The El Nino of 1982-1983

As I said in the last post on El Nino; an El Nino is a natural climate event caused by the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), through which we see above average warming of the eastern into central equatorial Pacific Ocean. If you what to review what I said, click this link.

The last post focused on the super El Nino of 1997-1998, this one will go into 1982-1983.

The 1982–83 El Nino was one of the strongest on record, caused a very warm winter in much of North America and Europe. SST anomalies in Nino region were +1.0 to +1.4°C, making it moderate to strong.

 

The 1982 Atlantic hurricane season was the least active in over 50 years, at that time, with only one subtropical storm, five named storms, two hurricanes, and one major hurricane in the Atlantic–Caribbean–Gulf region

The 1982-1983 Winter

The super So Nino of 1982–1983 brought unusually warm temperatures, with generally lower than average precipitation, but with below-average snowfall across much of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, with occasional icy conditions.

Temperatures

The warm, moist air from the Gulf and Atlantic interacted with cold fronts to produce mixed precipitation in some areas, with rain more common than snow.

December was very warm for the eastern 2/3rds of the CONUS. Temperatures cooled off for January across the South and Southeast. But they remained very warm across the Great Lakes and Northeast. February saw temperatures across the Northeast into northern Middle Atlantic warm even more. March 1983 was also very warm.   

Precipitation

But in spite of the warm temperatures, there were some major snowstorms.

The 1982–83 El Nino greatly altered jet stream patterns, contributing to the mild winter but also allowing some cold air outbreaks and storm systems to bring some extreme snow events. The combination of warmth and moisture created a paradoxical winter: mild enough for unusual outdoor activity, but stormy enough to cause significant snowfall and travel disruptions.

The January Snowstorm

A low-pressure system formed over the Rocky Mountains and Great Basin, as the storm moved to the east it pulled in a lot of cold air, Gulf Moisture was also pulled north, a secondary low formed and moved up the Atlantic coast, then exploded over the upper Hudson Valley. This became the Northeast’s first snowstorm January 13th-15^th of 1983. The storm buried northern New York under 2 to 3 feet of snow, 24.5 inches of snow on Albany and 27 inches on Saratoga Springs. The storm generally dumped 13–22 inches across Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island in New England, snow extended as far south as Delaware. The mountains in western Maryland ended up with 6 inches of snow.

The February 1983 Megalopolitan Blizzard

In February a major storm struck the mid-Atlantic states, New York metropolitan area and southern New England. It started as a low-pressure system over eastern Texas on February 9, 1983, and moved eastward across the Gulf of America on the 10^th. As the low continued to push toward the East Coast before heading northeast where it intensified further near the Carolina coast. As surface pressure dropped it moved up the Coast, high pressure north of the low, provided plenty of cold air wrapping in on the back side. Once it paralleled the I-95 corridor heading toward southern New England on February 12th.  All the moisture dragged northward ran into the cold air resulting in a near blizzard. In the metro areas from Washington D.C. northward into southern New England between 12 and 16 inches was recorded.

 

Snowfall in the northern and central Adirondacks and Catskills was below normal, consistent with the broader pattern of reduced snow throughout the northern U.S.

The warm, moist air from the Gulf and Atlantic interacted with cold fronts to produce mixed precipitation in some areas, with rain more common than snow. The subtropical jet stream was stronger than normal, steering more active storm systems from the south and southeast into the Mid-Atlantic. But in spite of this, the region as a whole saw generally below average amounts of snow. The warm, moist air from the Gulf and Atlantic interacted with cold fronts to produce several mixed precipitation events in many areas, with rain more common than snow. Snowfall in the northern and central Adirondacks along with the Catskills was below average.

During the winter of 1982-1983 the Coastal Plain and the I-95 saw very little snow.

Seasonal snowfall for the major I-95 Cities during the 1982–1983 winter season

New York City recorded 26.4 inches of snow at the KNYC station

Washington, D.C. area recorded 27.6 inches of snow at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (KDCA)

Boston’s Logan International Airport (KBOS) recorded 32.7 inches of snow

Baltimore, Maryland, the total annual snowfall was 30.3 inches

Philadelphia recorded a total snowfall of 36.0 inches at the Philadelphia International Airport (KPHL)

The Great Lakes

Across the northern Great Lakes, the 1982-1983 El Nino’s, it was a very mild and dry winter, with very low ice cover. The Great Lakes as a whole saw the lowest Great Lakes ice cover over the lakes since systematic records began in 1960. This was due to above-average lake temperatures, which reduced lake effect snow totals compared to average years.

Not all El Nino’s are the same.

Atmospheric patterns such as the MJO, Pacific North American pattern and the Arctic Oscillation will control the weekly and even monthly overall pattern. These other teleconnections can greatly impact variability and the local pattern.  

The El Nino of 2009-2010

For December 2009 to February 2010 the NINO3 index, computed from the NCEP-NCAR Reanalysis, averaged 1°C. Which made it a moderate El Nino, even though it wasn’t strong it was a fairly substantial El Nino. Many times, temperatures during El Nino have the northern US warmer than average. But the winter of 2009 through 2010 was quite different. Much of the central and eastern US underwent colder than average temperatures along with a series of major snowstorms. The only exception was Maine. For some areas in the Middle Atlantic region, it ended up being one of their snowiest winters on record.

Why was the 2009-2010 El Nino so cold and snowy? The anomalously high levels of snow in the Mid-Atlantic states of the US that winter were caused primarily by a persistent negative North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and to a lesser extent by the El Nino.

 In summary

 While it is far too early to know exactly how all of this will unfold, the combination of a potentially very strong El Nino and several other important teleconnection climate signals as well as Siberian snow cover and Arctic sea ice during the fall, will all influence how much cold air becomes available later in the season and how the storm track sets up.

While the El Nino–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) sets up the overall pattern behind the scenes, like an enhanced southern subtropical jet; Atmospheric patterns such as the Madden–Julian Oscillation (MJO), Pacific North American pattern (PNA), Arctic Oscillation (AO) and the NAO will control the weekly and even monthly overall pattern. These other teleconnections can greatly impact variability and the local pattern. These will help determine where cold air develops and how storms track across North America.

During the winter of 1982 and 1983, both the AO and NAO shifted into their negative phases in January into February. That change allowed colder Arctic air to move into the lower 48, helping produce major snowstorms across the Midwest, Northeast into the Mid Atlantic.

In the previous El Nino post, I showed how the 1997-1998 Super El Nino impacted that winter. This one covered 1982-1983 showing how that Super El Nino impacted that winter. But I also showed how the El Nino of 2009 and 2010 behaved radically different than was expected. It still remains unclear how this year’s strong El Nino will end up, will it be very warm or coolish, will it see more snowfall and widespread storms or devastating ice storms. All of this will depend on how several of the atmospheric teleconnections come together in the months ahead. Most analogue years have a habit of showing up during a season. I don’t doubt, certain aspects of the super El Ninos of 1982-83, 1997-98 and 2015-16 will be an issue, keeping things unpredictable.

That's it for this post. I'm also going to be releasing an overlook of the Super El Nino of 2015-2016 in a few weeks.

If you have questions or like this, leave a comment and let me know.