BLOG: Checking in On Summer So Far...and a Look Ahead

Happy Friday! Apologies for the downturn in blog posts, social media posts and "Weather For Weather Geeks" videos over the last couple of weeks. You are going to see some exciting changes in our weather operation soon on 21 News and we have been tied up preparing for those changes over the last couple of weeks.We are about halfway through August and this morning's lows were in the upper 40s. Of course, there has been a lot of "buzz" about how cool this Summer has been. We will see what the final numbers are at the end of the month, but since it's Friday and, who doesn't love a Friday Weather Statistics Party??....let's have a look at where we stand.First, the big picture. Here are the Summer (June 1-now) temperature anomalies for the continent: As you can see, Summer has been coldest (compared to average) across the High Plains. The Northwest has had a warm Summer.Here in Youngstown, it's been a cool Summer, but nowhere near the top of the record books. Coldest Summers (June 1-August 14) on record:  Seems strange right?? Well keep in mind, June was actually a WARMER than average month. So that skews things a bit. The numbers look different if we look at JULY 1-now: That seems more in line with the perception of the Summer as a whole.What about August so far? Again, the big picture first:   Interestingly, LAST AUGUST (orange) was colder (through the 14th) than this year (yellow) in Youngstown.We have certainly had a lot of cool mornings. But again, many years have had more frequent cool mornings. A look at the number of mornings with lows 55 or lower in July and early August:And, mornings with 50 degrees or below: So, bottom line...yes it has been a cool Summer, especially since the start of July. But we have had many, many cooler ones. What about the future? Well, of course we are quite cool now....thanks to that big dip in the jet stream over eastern Canada and the NE US: Next week will feature a pretty decent pattern shift. Here's the expected position of the jet a week from today:  Very hot weather can be expected under that ridge in the middle of the country. While the core of the heat is not expected to shift far enough east to give us a heat wave...we can certainly expect some warm weather toward the end of next week into next weekend. There should be at least a couple of days with highs in the mid 80s. Here's the latest CFS model temperature forecast for the 19th through the 24th: We have lower confidence when it comes to what happens toward the end of the month. The latest CFS has another cool period: But I am not sure if that is right yet. Stay tuned! Thanks for reading.Eric