The month of June is over now and I know a lot of people out there are ready to say good riddance to the 6
th month of 2009. I went digging to find some numbers to back up how bad the month was but I was a bit surprised. Yes were below normal in temperature (about a degree) and wetter than normal (over 5” for the month) but neither fall into the top 10 for coolest or wettest Junes in Syracuse’s history. Part of it is due to perception. The last few weekends (when people have lots of outdoor plans) we’ve had rain or the threat of rain.
At this point people must be thinking that this is the wettest stretch of weather we’ve endured in years. We are working on 7 days as of today (Wednesday) Nope. Just last August we went 12 straight days with at least a trace of rain. So we do have precedence for this type of pattern and a recent precedence to boot.
The million dollar question is when will this pattern break? People with vacation plans or farming concerns would like to be able to plan without having to worry about the threat of rain. The first thing is to get rid of the big cut-off low that’s now over us. All signs point to this low breaking down and shifting to our north beginning Friday. As I’ve said on the air for the past few days unfortunately even though the big low is gone we will still be in troughy pattern here in the East. That makes it hard to remove the rain drop or bolt from the forecast but we feel our chances for rain will come down for Saturday and Sunday.
Beyond that I keep looking at some of our long range data for some clues for the middle of July and there at least a few positive signs. First, I was looking at the arctic oscillation. We focus on this index quite a bit during the winter to forecast cold snaps since it does key in on blocking patterns. If you look at the graph to the right notice how the index is negative (the black line at the far right) which corresponds to the blocking pattern we are in right now and the below normal temperatures. Also, notice how going out in time the graph (more specifically, the red lines) tries to head back to a more neutral position. There are also signs from the European model and the GFS that the trough will try to depart by the end of next of the week. Since we are dealing with a blocking pattern I don’t want to say this is a done deal but for the first time in a couple weeks I’m at least encouraged by what I see in the longer range data.
