Wednesday, August 07, 2013

Severe Storms Possible Later Today


We're already seeing development in southern Michigan. In fact, this cluster started to develop in Wisconsin at 1AM where it moved west over Lake Michigan, weakened a bit and is not fanning out to the west. CLICK HERE FOR THE NEWEST RADAR LOOP




The dew points are climbing; precipitable water levels will be much higher...
Convective Energy is highest in western Ohio later today and this evening
 Severe thunderstorm watch possible later today in this area
The HRRR model still shows spotty storms developing ahead of the Michigan cluster by midday.....
Here is the HRRR projection for this afternoon and early evening showing more widespread storm coverage.


Thursday, August 01, 2013

July is in the books: TEMPERATURE NUMBERS

My last two posts reinforced how common "cooler" Julys like this month are when we look back as recent as the early 2000s. I also mentioned how the RECENCY EFFECT plays a huge role in our skewed perceptions of July temperatures. The last few years of record heat helped us forget about the other "cool" months of July in our recent weather history.

The final NWS numbers are in. I broke down the July temperatures into two categories: AVERAGE MAX TEMPERATURE and OVERALL AVERAGE TEMPERATURE (MAX and MIN). Where does 2013 fit over the last 30 years? VERY NEAR AVERAGE on both measures. (The prior years--2010,11--are circled in red for reference)
How about the final number of days this July below 80 degrees? Believe it or not, the 11 days below 80 degrees was only slightly above the average average since 1980.

ALMOST HALF OF THE YEARS SINCE 1980 HAD MORE DAYS WITH HIGH TEMPERATURES BELOW 80 DEGREES THAN THIS YEAR

Just for fun, here is the 90 degree scorecard comparing this summer to the last 4 summers.