US Weather Commentary

Location: New York
Author: Michael Schlacter
Date: Wednesday, April 26, 2006
 

Springtime bringing cool weather for the central and eastern states, while the west warms.

Although our forecast table is switching to "Summer Mode", day-to-day and week-to-week volatility clearly demonstrates that we are in the still riding the Spring transition roller-coaster. Dallas, TX will drop into the 50's for the first time in 2 weeks, after cracking 100° on the 17th. Long Island, NY recorded more precipitation on April 23rd than it did in the previous 69 days (bringing some relief to recent incipient drought conditions). And yesterday's report of only 3 tornadoes (in OK) is only a slight respite in this season's blistering record pace (561 tornadoes through April 18th).

As a couple cool Canadian air masses settle across the Central and Eastern States in the week ahead, the focus for warmth moves to the Western States. Mountainous areas in Central and Northern California, Southern and Eastern Oregon, Southwestern Idaho and Northern Nevada will be susceptible to rapid snow melt run-off and river flooding. Heavy precipitation over recent months in these areas built up a juicy snowpack, which will be unleashed during the upcoming prolonged warm-up. The rest of the Pacific Northwest and Rockies escaped the fury of these storms, and will see a neutral to dry Spring and Summer run-off season, while the desert Southwest remains as desperate and dry as can be.

New Forecast Cities Reminder

Starting today, we are shifting to "Summer Mode" with respect to the cities provided in our attached forecast tables. While many hubs remain the same, this will be a new list (based on client feed-back) that best covers Summer areas of concern, until it switches back to "Winter Mode" again later in October 2006.

Forecasting the Forecast:

Warm outlooks for the West from the NWS will continue today, as model agreement is high over that region. However, New England should see a retraction of the warmth in the 6-10 day period and an addition of cool for the 8-14 day period. The Southeast should remain cool but don't be surprised if some of the cool temperatures are removed from Texas.

From previous discussions, re-included for pertinence:

Rain storms of historic proportions are being funneled into Central and Northern California, flooding towns and farmland alike.

Water temperatures are well above average (and even warmer than this time in 2005) across the Western Gulf of Mexico, around Florida and through the Gulf Stream. This is helping to mitigate any sea-breeze cooling for Southern seaboard communities, and also building alarming levels of hydrothermal potential energy in the weeks leading up to the 2006 Atlantic Hurricane Season.