Summer Outlook 2022

Here is our FOX 8 Summer Outlook for 2022! 

The Perfect Weather Day: When Do They Occur Most?

My definition of a perfect weather day is a day with temperatures between 65 and 80 degrees with no rainfall. After analyzing ALL the days (more than 14,000) from 1980 to 2020 and plotting the instances for each day of the year, this is what I found:

Notice the typical increase in late spring, the drop in summer then the big increase in September and early October.  Once the pattern flips in mid October it rarely recovers (blue arrow).  Enjoy these days while you can :)

Will Lake Erie Freeze Over This Winter?

If you live around the Great Lakes especially downwind in wintertime, you probably experience lake effect snow especially during the first half of winter when the lakes are warmer and free of ice. Here in northern Ohio we live on the southern edge of Lake Erie (warmest and shallowest lake) directly in the lake effect snow firing line.  More ice on Lake Erie reduces lake effect snow potential. So each winter by mid January, the same question pops up: Will the lake freeze?

Photo Courtesy:  Scott Sabol February 2013

Let's see how much ice is on the lake right now (as of January 12). Roughly 0.6% 

(Right after Christmas, we reached 1.2% ice coverage on the 27th of December before it melted off)

Ice coverage is well below normal so far (red line is this winter 2020-2021 through 1/11)

For initial clues on where this year's ice coverage might end up, Great Lakes historical ice coverage data (GLERL) might shed some light. This data goes back to 1973. (I wish it went back further). 

The graph below shows the historical ice coverage through January 8th since the early 1970s. 

How many years have had similar (20% and under) ice coverage at this stage of the winter--January 11th?  24 total since 1973.

Which one of those years ended up with more than 80% or more ice coverage? Only 6:  1985, 1997, 2000, 2004,, 2005 and 2019

In these years ice coverage jumped significantly in just a few weeks!

Why did those years develop ice so quickly?  Look at the temperatures vs normal across the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley between January 11th (low ice coverage) and the day when ice coverage reached at least 80% FOR EACH OF THESE 6 YEARS. 

I tabulated the number of days where the high temperatures in Cleveland stayed at/under 32° and the overnight lows stayed at/under 15°.

The below normal cold wasn't just relegated to Ohio. In each year, the cold was widespread over multiple weeks!

1985: Every day was under 32 degrees. Half of nights under 15 degrees

1997: Half of days under 32 degrees. 10 of 13 nights under 15 degrees

2000: 14 of 18 days under 32 degrees. 11 of 18 nights under 15 degrees

2004: 9 of 15 days under 32 degrees. 10 of 15 nights under 15 degrees

2005: 10 of 14 days under 32 degrees. 8 of 14 nights under 15 degrees

2019: Half of days under 32 degrees. Only 8 of 20 nights under 15 degrees

The Lake Erie water temperatures in these years started out well above freezing between January 11 and January 13. By day 10 (January 23) the water temp had dropped to between 32 and 34 degrees...

...It wasn't until the water temperature dropped under 34 degrees between January 21 and 24 that the ice coverage increased.  The ice coverage jump day to day (see below) was significant beyond day 10 once the water temperature dropped and the cold air temperatures were firmly established.  

*  What are the shortest jumps from 20% to nearly 80% ice coverage?

2/7/1973 to 2/13/1973:    17% to 81% in 6 days

2/6/1995 to 2/11/1995:    16% to 80% in 5 days

1/17/1997 to 1/22/1997:  24% to 77% in 5 days

1/19/2005 to 1/24/2005:  24% to 82% in 5 days

2/4/2013 to 2/10/2013:    20% to 82% in 6 days

2/10/2016 to 2/15/2016:  0.7% to 79% in 5 days

In each of these years (with the exception of 2016), the ice coverage remained at around 80% for 3+ weeks

*  The average ice coverage for specific dates between 2010 and 2020:

January 15:    38%

January 20:    40%

January 31:    46%

February 10:  56%

February 20:  50%

March 1:        49%

March 15:      34%

March 31:      17%

Average dates where ice coverage is highest:  February 13-18th

Historically here is the daily ice coverage for each year in January and February. 

Based on the temperature forecast for the remainder of January and into early February, what are the chances the lake freezes over--80% or more?   Pretty small.

We are entering a 2 week stretch through the end of January with periods of colder than normal temperatures.  Based on what I am seeing, on the higher end I think the ice coverage will be between 40-50% by month's end.  In reality I believe it will verify closer to 25%.

Bottom line, Lake Erie will stay open for lake effect snow business into early February!

The first 10-14 days of February will be key to the rest of the winter Lake Erie ice coverage. 

History of Snow Between Thanksgiving and Christmas: Are Our Chances Higher This Year?

In late October, we issued our WINTER WEATHER OUTLOOK for 2020-2021.  The general idea is for a backloaded winter with shorter "teaser" periods of cold and snow in December.  So far (as of this writing before Thanksgiving, we've had under an inch of snow). 

Sledding with my kids when they were much younger!

How much snow do we typically get between Thanksgiving and New Years' Eve? We average around 10" over the last 10 years although the trend for early season snow has dropped over the last 15 years.

How about actual snowfalls?  We average around 4 one-inch snowfalls during the holidays.

Snowfall is one thing. But snow on the ground during the holidays is entirely different. More days with snow on the ground, the better chance we will remember it as a "snowy" holiday. We average around 8 days with snow on the ground over the last 10-15 years. 

As of this writing we are watching for changes in the pattern that strongly show more cold.

* Ridge developing across central Asia

* Jet stream across the North Pacific changing

* More frequent lows across Northern Pacific

All of this is resulting in the high pressure across the western US/North America with low pressure across eastern US. We call this a +PNA pattern (Pacific North American)

The super-long range model output into Christmas week is also strongly hinting at this eastern TROUGH/COLD lasting beyond December 20th. While I think this is probable, my confidence is high ONLY through the first two weeks of the month.

Animation from Thanksgiving to December 21st

Historically we average 15 days with temperatures in the 30s or COLDER over the last 10-15 years. Last winter we had 14 days in the 30s or COLDER before December 31st

Either way, cold and BELOW NORMAL temperatures are coming the first week of December with good chances of accumulating snow along with lake effect multiple times! Winter is coming everyone...

Labor Day Heavy Rainfall in Ohio. Summer heat to snow out west

 Stalled front between 6am and mid afternoon created training of storms across most of northern Ohio.

Radar loop from 5am to 7pm Labor Day

More than 90% of northern Ohio received 1" or more (green or yellow colors) above

I calculated that more than 80 BILLION of gallons of rain fell over a 12 county area between 6am and 6pm. 

Labor Day's rainfall ranks 3rd all-time at Hopkins? 

Here is the top 30 rainiest days. I boxed in red the events that occurred in September.

Today's rain is exactly 24 years after the remains of Hurricane Fran passed over eastern Ohio setting our single day rainfall record of 4.59"

I dug up some of the NWS Cleveland forecast messages from the Iows Mesonet Database (check it out. It's a great resource) issued from that day in 1996:

8:30am message from NWS Cleveland on 9/7/1996

10:40am NWS message from NWS Cleveland on 9/7/1996

All of this here in Ohio doesn't compare to the dramatic changes parts of Colorado will go through weatherwise over the next 24 hours. Mid 90s to ower 30s with accumulating snow!

Per "Maxar_Weather" on Twitter: "...Years in which Denver recorded both a 100° high and measurable snow. The shortest time in between was 25 days in 1962, with 100°+ on 8/14 and snow measured on 9/8. Denver reached 101° on Saturday and is expected to record measurable snow three days later--Tuesday."

Progression of April Cold

After an extremely mild winter, the pattern across the North American continent shifted significantly colder around the second week of April. 

Remember that April started off above normal across the eastern US. The first 9 days of April the average high temperaure was close to 60 degrees in northern Ohio! We reached 72 on April 7th.  Slowly colder air settled in especially across a large portion of the country. Each graphic below illustrates the gradual progression of the cold (above/below normal temperatures) in 20,15,10,7,5,3,1 day periods prior to April 15th. The last graphic is the 5 day period from April 15-20th.

20 day temperature anomalies - 20 days leading up to April 15

15 day temperature anomalies - 20 days leading up to April 15

10 day temperature anomalies - 20 days leading up to April 15

7 day temperature anomalies - 20 days leading up to April 15th

5 day temperature anomalies - 20 days leading up to April 15th

3 day temperature anomalies - 20 days leading up to April 15th

1 day temperature anomalies - 20 days leading up to April 15th

5 day temperature anomalies - 20 days leading up to April 20th

Why these early spring changes? Let's go back to the winter for a moment. The pattern was dominantly mild. There was no "blocking" over Greenland.  The Arctic Oscillation stayed STRONGLY positive. The Polar Vortex was strong with no big perturbations south. 

The next three slides are the 500mB heights for each month January through March 26th.  High pressure over the northern Pacific. SE ridge across the US. Low pressure over the poles/North Atlantic.

By the last week of March, notice the changes. The northern Pacific high shifted west. A strong ridge developed in the North Atlantic! The SE ridge from March was still intact.

These pressure changes were a significant sign that April would more than likely feature some significant changes in areas that were used to above normal temperatures especially the eastern US and possibly the Great Lakes. (April 5th I posted a tweet noting that the next 10-14 days would feature some cold air/below normal temperatures) 

By the first week of April, the ridge across the eastern US was breaking down. High latitude blocking was present.

Between April 6 and 10, the high started to pop back in the southern states. Northern Pacific ridge was far weaker. The trough in New England was building in response to the blocking

By April 11-15th the trough/ride wavelength were much larger. The central US/eastern US trough had grown (blue colors) and was locked in.

April 16-19th featured the dominant trough across much of the US and Canada with the exception of Florida.

Watch how the colder air bled southeast throughout early/mid April in response to the upper level changes. From April 14 to the 23nd we had 5 days in the 30s and 40s with wind chills in the 20s in spots!

Is this "cold mid-April" unprecedented?  Here are some years in the past with cold mid Aprils similar to 2020. (Temperature anomalies from April 12-21 for the years 1875, 1943, 1953, 1983, 1997 and 2007 pictured below. I am sure I missed a few)

How about here in northern Ohio. Where does this cold mid April rank?  Here is the list: 2020 rank 33rd.  Also keep in mind that 32 of the 40 years listed occurred BEFORE 1960. The last year similar to this year was 2018 then 2007, 1975.

Here's a more recent analysis: Below is a graph showing the number of days with below normal temperatures through April 2nd since 1990 (last 30 years) in northern Ohio (Hopkins Airport-Cleveland). Perhaps we forgot about 2018 with MORE days below normal than 2020.

How about April snow in these years?  Great question.

This year we've had 9 day with at least a trace of snow (through April 22). Two years ago (2018) we had.....13!

So while it has been colder than normal in April, it is not unprecedented.  The recency effect is strong here as we may have placed more weight on this year because it is front of mind.

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A FEW THINGS TO NOTE:  THE COLD APRIL ISN'T A RESULT OF THE RELATIVELY MILD WINTER. SIMPLY BECAUSE THE WINTER WAS "MILD" DOESN'T AUTOMATICALLY MEAN APRIL WAS GOING TO BE COLDER THAN NORMAL. ALSO, THE GLOBAL/CONTINENTAL DRIVERS OF WEATHER PATTERNS IN WINTER CAN PRODUCE DIFFERENT TEMPERATURES, ETC IN SPRING AND SUMMER. THIS IS NOT CONFIRMATION OF "GLOBAL COOLING". IN FACT ONLY A SMALL PERCENTAGE OF THE WORLD HAS HAD TEMPERATURES BELOW NORMAL THIS MONTH.