Summertime Pattern Is On

Jet stream is vacationing in Canada and the Monsoon’s time has come…

Canadian storm chasers are very busy with the jet stream’s recent travel plans to our friendly neighbors to the North. Repeated rounds of photogenic storms, powerful tornadoes, and stunning skies have been occurring further north.

Down here, it’s been a lot of pulse/pop-up type of stuff on the Plains into the Southwest with the monsoon pattern ramping up.

The Big Driver

The big driver of our current pattern is a powerful ridge of high pressure sitting over the middle of the country, pushing that jet stream way north.

Curious about the jet stream? It’s a good day to learn! We actually have a new video on that below:

Ring of Fire

The ring of fire pattern we’re seeing is resulting in ample storm opportunities around the periphery of the ridge, from up in Canada to down into the desert SW. Daily rounds of storms are expected from Arizona back towards Texas, with heavy rainfall possible in localized regions.

Severe weather threats will remain on the low end of the scale, but damaging winds and small hail are possible in a pattern like this, as very low wind shear will combine with tropical moisture. However, shear has weakened quite a bit over the last week, and the threats may be more sporadic than they have been.

This isn’t a banner pattern of severe weather in the US, and won’t be for a while.

Super El Niño

You’ve no doubt heard about this one, and it’s true, we’re seeing something pretty unprecedented since records have been kept in terms of oceanic warming.

The Pacific Ocean is running a fever, which is going to almost certainly lead to this year being amongst the warmest on record.

An El Niño event like this one is without a lot of historical precedent, so it’s hard to say if the effects of a typical Nino pattern are amped or if we get something a bit different. The additional moisture content in the atmosphere and likely southern track of the jet stream will likely mean an active late summer through winter from California into the Southeast, with heavy rainfall/snow possible.

Typically, El Niños have a modulating/lessening effect on tornadoes in the year after they form…typically. In 1998, the country saw over 1400 tornadoes with several of them violent in what is the only realistic comparison to this year’s El Niño. That’s a small sample though, and it’s far too early to talk next spring when I personally think Fall this year might end up busy.

But that’s for another newsletter…