Lows this morning were cool with areas of dense fog at 42-48.
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Some locations in southern Indiana and Illinois were within 3 degrees of the record low, the record low occurring in northeastern Minnesota. Hibbing dropped to 26. Even northern Iowa dropped into the 30s with Forest City at 37 and 36 northwest of Mason City.
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Record heat in Western Europe has shrunk and shifted eastward. Record high temperatures were recorded over the past 24 hours from Bulgaria and Hungary to Poland, Belarus and Estonia.
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Highs today reach 68-76 with some intermittent/scattered rain or heavy rain.
Doppler radar estimates and actual measurement amounts:
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So first………….
The first ten days of these forecasts and general forecasts………..
Let’s dig……
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Areas of dense fog tonight with a temperature of 40-46 will turn to 70-76 Thursday with sun and cumulus clouds (with northeast winds).
With some areas dense fog and clouds Friday morning with 42-48, Cumulus/sun and 73-78 (east to southeast).
On Saturday, with increasing clouds, temperatures are expected to range between 76 and 81 with southwesterly winds.
Meanwhile, Hurricane Lee will likely make landfall in far eastern Maine or New Brunswick on Saturday late at night as a Category 1 or 2 storm. However, it will have a cat. Type 4 storm surges and tropical storm force may extend all the way into eastern Long Island and Vermont. Hurricane force will reach the coast of Rhode Island and Massachusetts into Maine, as well as high elevations from New Hampshire to northeastern Vermont.
Up to 6 inches of rain is possible over Maine.
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A little or scattered rain is likely Saturday night with a low of 59-63.
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With clouds/sun, more rain or some scattered showers are possible Sunday with a high of 73-78.
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We are warming up well next week. After temperatures were below normal Monday at 72-76, we return to 76-80 Tuesday and 80-85 Wednesday with sunshine.
82-86 is possible next Thursday and Friday.
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With the tropical system(s) likely to make landfall in Mexico, massive tropical moisture will rise northward around the perimeter of the upper ridge, into the plains mid to late next week.
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Deep tropical moisture with localized flooding from Texas to Manitoba will also have severe risks. This is where the strong flow moves high as the upper basin emerges from the Rockies, into the plains. Meanwhile, a strong tropical flow with dew points in the 70s will flow from the south to the southeast at the surface.
Meanwhile, Hurricane Margot could pass near Newfoundland around September 22 after hitting Bermuda around September 20.
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We will likely see rain and storms from September 23-27 with higher than normal temperatures.
The main corridor of parameters indicating slight risk to risk is Minnesota, Wisconsin to Iowa to Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska, but we may end up with a marginal risk scenario for a day or two in the 23-27 time frame (given the parameters seen).
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A cold snap, then a warmer snap, then a cold snap again (with first patchy frost in some areas…..then 80-84…..then frost and freeze at 27-32) will end 1- October 15 period.
Dry to wetter, then dry weather should occur (average rainfall reaches normal).
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It then appears to be a warm-up with above-normal precipitation before another round of below-normal temperatures occurs from October 16-28.
A hard freeze (25) appears unlikely to occur in the area before October 31 at this point, but it is likely to occur several mornings of the 27-32.
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Anomalies continue with El Nino.
The eastern tropical Pacific continues to warm into a full-fledged strong El Nino.
However, notice how unusually warm the North and Northwest Pacific Ocean is.
In a moderate to strong El Niño, you get cooler waters in the northwest to the North Pacific, where the PDO and ENSO are closely linked. A+ PDO (unusually cold water in the North Pacific) coincides with El Niño. However, we have a strange case of El Niño with -PDO (North Pacific Warm Water). The only thing that is normal for El Niño any degree north of the equator is warm water off the west coast and Baja and cold water coming off Hawaii toward the northeast.
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Only two years since at least 1900 (in a reconstruction of an SST anomaly) have shown no conjunction at their time of year: 1940 and 1994.
They both ended up named El Nino Modokis with a pairing that followed in late fall. Both were moderate intensity El Nino Modoki.
Currently, El Nino 3.4 indicates that we are heading towards a strong El Nino and we have already reached a strong El Nino.
However, the Multivariate Index (MEI) indicates that we are in a weak El Niño situation. What does this mean?
The MEI is a good measure of El Niño’s ocean-atmosphere coupling, while the other accurately shows El Niño from the point of view of sea surface temperature in the ocean, pushing out any atmospheric component.
So, we have a very strong El Nino developing, but no atmospheric conjunction. Why? Well, you see this with a developed Modoki more than a traditional El Nino, but the non-conjunction rarely lasts for long. This strong El Niño scenario has rarely failed to attach to the atmosphere so far.
This is likely related to the lack of cooling in the North Pacific. As a result, we are entering a completely new territory where the lack of couplings has far exceeded what it was in 1940 or 1994.
The ocean says we’ve reached a major El Niño phase, and the atmosphere says it’s not so fast, as El Niño climate has not yet taken hold (as indicated by low MEI values). In fact, it was only recently (barely) that the MEI finally entered the cusp of El Niño.
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The lack of El Niño atmospheric coupling likely resulted in a strong Atlantic hurricane season that is typically tamed by El Niño shear.
Winter shows a tendency for strong Modoki El Nino events to develop in the ocean and atmosphere after this lack of coupling.
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This pattern supports the potential for significant production losses in soybean and corn growing areas in southern Brazil. This will have a significant ripple effect on our local farmers in raising corn and soybean prices.
Drought, heat and major fires may also hit the Indo-Pacific region, along with parts of Australia.
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So…..
The south and east are generally colder than normal and we are heading toward a milder than normal winter.
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December-January-February rainfall regime for the Lower 48:
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The winter is expected to be very snowy in the Northeast and Appalachia (compared to normal), as well as in parts of the Tennessee Valley.
There is an increased risk of a major ice storm in the Appalachian Mountains to the Piedmont of North Carolina and Georgia, as well as even into the Northeast.
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I have concerns about a drier-than-normal winter here and on the Plains to the northwest in that warmer-than-normal region. This could trigger a feedback that causes drought to spread widely from the Midwest to the Pacific Northwest by spring.
The latest data suggests that heavy rainfall in early to late spring will offset that in our area, but we need to keep an eye on that.
We will move quickly (perhaps unusually quickly) from Modoki El Nino to neutral conditions by next summer. Therefore, other players will appear in this style by next summer.
If the responses overwhelm other climate players, drought could rear its ugly head in parts of the Corn Belt (particularly the western Corn Belt). We’ll see. There is no good analog data to support this at the moment, but it is just an observation. More research will be in the future.
