showmethesnow

I should be. This tracking of non-existent Hurricanes sucks. Following heat waves suck. Tracking summer weather sucks in general and is boring as hell. Much more fun tracking those fantasy snowstorms for days only to see them go poof a day or two before they are supposed to hit.

CAT 5 or go home. By the way, where are all these hurricanes you promised us?

The possible heat wave with high humidity that I thought the GEFS might be moving towards for early August? It went POOF... GEFS backed down big time on the major feature that was driving it. Below we have a 5 day of the 500 mbs from a week ago. What we are seeing is that we have heights and ridging in the Atlantic that are building westward into the SE. In response we are seeing the trough in the east and ridging in the west retrograding westward in response. Not only that but we are also seeing a backing of the flow which is resulting in a more pronounced eastern trough and western ridge. So basically the GEFS was advertising a moisture laden S/SW flow setting up through our region in early August. Now despite some waffling up to this point (7 days ago), on previous runs the GEFS was generally moving towards stronger heights and ridging in the Atlantic with it getting more aggressive on driving that feature into the SE. Hence my thoughts that the GEFS was hinting fairly strongly at a possible heat wave. But as I said, it all went POOF. This is the latest 5 day run of the GEFS. As you can see if you look in the Atlantic the ridging has backed down considerably. So consequently we are not seeing the eastern trough and western riding retrograding nor are we seeing these features more pronounced due to backing of the flow. So what this is doing is setting up an almost zonal flow through the N CONUS and through our region. So instead of a S/SW flow with the heat/humidity being advertised 7 days ago we are now looking at a generally westerly flow. And with this westerly flow we are looking at more seasonable temps through our region especially on the coastal plain. Areas closer to the mountains may experience slightly above anomalies as a result of down sloping. And this is generally what the GEFS is showing temp wise at this time. Now to give you are more stark contrast of the changes we have seen I will switch to an Atlantic view and just do a snapshot of 1 period of time. This is the 00Z from 7 days ago for Aug 2nd. Look at the ridging and higher heights in the Atlantic and its westward extension into the SE. This is resulting in a retrograding eastern trough and ridging in the west. This setup argues for a hot/humid SW/S flow through the region. Now compare the above map to what the GEFS is now advertising. A pretty stark contrast as we are seeing the ridging much weaker and farther east. Thus the trough and the western ridging are not retrograding in the previous example and we are seeing a more zonal/westerly flow and the seasonable temps that come with it. As far as the GEFS towards the end of the extended (looking over the last few runs) there are no indications at this time of a major heatwave and actually look fairly seasonable. Below we have the 5 day at the end of the extended. Notice the area where we are seeing the ridging in the Atlantic (Black circle) and the extent of the ridging extending northward (red arrow). In this general location it pretty much argues for seasonable temps through our region with fluctuations between slightly above to slightly below temp anomalies at any given time. Now day to day changes with that feature (Atlantic ridging) will determine what we can expect temp wise. Stronger ridging northward and/or a slight adjustment westward of the placement will back the flow somewhat resulting in a sharper trough in the east and the corresponding slightly below temps that would come with a NW flow. Conversely a weaker Atlantic ridge and/or adjustment eastward would result in less backing of the flow with a more zonal/westerly flow and the slightly above temps (especially on the lee side of the mountains) from down-sloping. Now short of seeing this Atlantic ridge much farther westward then currently projected (riding up the east coast) I really don't see any major heat waves in the coming future om the current guidance from the GEFS. But as we just saw for the early August time period things can and do change.

Been wet up here. And mosquitoes? I'll ship a bunch down to you since I have more then enough to share.

I guess it's true. If you bitch enough you get want you want.

Don't tell me you are buying into Ji's panic? Have a good feeling about it myself. Such a good feeling that I am going to let my numbers from last year ride again. BWI: 47 DCA: 32 IAD: 52 RIC: 23 Tiebreaker (SBY ): 21 It's like the lottery. You keep picking the same numbers they eventually have to come up, Right?

How much will it take for you to fix my numbers? On the sly of course.

Have to call a friend that lives just to the east of Hanover in Blooming Grove. It looks as if they are picking up some serious rainfall with the storm being stationary for quite awhile now.

Thankfully the larger hail was very sporadic, mixed in with the marble sized hail at the end. And speaking of cars, I better go check my truck and jeep.

Actually think its been there for maybe an hour and a half or so. Was outside earlier complaining about seeing and hearing the storm to my E/NE thinking I wouldn't see anything.

Getting somewhat impressive rain at this time with fairly strong winds as well. Quite a few twigs and small branches down. Very localized storm basically just in the Hanover area and surrounding suburbs to the east.

Just had about 10-15 minutes of marble sized hail and towards the end we were seeing hail about 2/3'rds the size of golf balls. Somewhat unsual storm in that it developed to the east of the area and expanded westward into my area.

BWI has already recorded 100 degrees from what I understand (per the hot weather contest). That will be the killer for my chances on the contest as I had 97 for a high.

Think the highest I have seen over the last few days was 97 here. Temps have been hot but not extremely so. It has been the damn humidity that has been a killer. All I can say is, '153 days until winter'.

Some of us actually watched it on TV. If you want to call a black and white picture with aluminum rabbit ears made from tin foil a TV.

They just don't make sun flowers like they used too. Back in my day sun flower plants were 5+ feet tall with heads a foot across.

Don't think this weekend will knock any out of the running. But looking over the GEFS at the end of the extended and how it is evolving is another story. I think it may be raising the red flag at the possibility of a major heat wave the beginning of August where the low ballers on temps (me included ) will be sent packing. Give it a few days and we'll see if my thoughts on how this evolves are legit.

Except for watching the death defying exploits of our @WxWatcher007 as he braved that monster called Barry down south I pretty much took a break from the models these last 12 days. It was nice to say the least. But I am back to wasting my time even though it is the dregs of Summer. Looking over things I would say the GEFS from the beginning of the month did a pretty good job overall in its extended. Well a good job except for our localized desert that @EastCoast NPZ calls home. I do hear the cacti are thriving down there. But I also hear that local authorities are considering a tumble weed alert so I do hope NPZ takes precautions and boards up his home. Looks as if we will see heat building into our region into the weekend but nothing too over the board as we are probably only generally looking at +4-6 over norm through the general metropolitan areas. The true heat relative to average looks to be centered to our north and northeast (upwards of +8-12 above average into NE). It also looks as if the leeward side of the mountains will experience greater anomalies from down sloping then what we will see through the coastal plains/metros. What I did find interesting was that it looks as if Barry had a hand in our building heat into the weekend. Below we see the 500 mb map from a couple of days ago, the 00z from Monday. What we have is ridging bumping up through the central US and troughing to our NE. This is setting up the flow from the NW through our region. We also see Barry undercutting the central US ridging shortly after it has made landfall. Now look what we see at 18z Tuesday. Almost 2 days later and Barry has been stuck in no man's land with very little movement as it has been cut off from the flow. What this slow movement has done has allowed Barry to flatten the flow/ridging above it. What it also has done is force a temporary building of a SE ridge. So instead of a general NW flow through the east we are now seeing a SW flow and the heat and humidity that will come with it. Looking over the extended GEFS it looks as if after the coming 5 days or so of heat that we will see a reprieve with a cool down beginning mid week next week. And the reasons for this can be seen at 500 mbs below for day 7-11. As you can see we have once again seen the ridging migrate westward into the west with troughing building into the east and with that trough the cooler temps it will bring. Now for those who look at the above and think we are seeing nothing more then a wash, rinse, repeat from my initial post from the beginning of the month I might disagree. There are some notable differences we are seeing with the long wave pattern as the GEFS moves into the end of the extended. Now what we are seeing below on the 12-16 day 500mb mean is that the ridging in the west and the troughing in the east have steadily retrograded westward from the map above. What this is now allowing is a building of ridging off the SE coast. Now the above was a 5 day mean so it mutes the look somewhat from what we are actually seeing at the very end of the extended which can be seen below. As you can see we have a much more pronounced SE ridge and a corresponding and fairly significant bump up of heights up the east coast. Now in conjunction with the above 500 mb map look at what we are seeing at 850 mb with both wind and moisture. Notice that we are seeing a southern/southwestern flow through our region. Not only that but we are seeing moisture streaming through the region as it gets picked up off the ocean as the flow revolves under and around the SE ridging. So what does the above mean for us? If the GEFS is somewhat correct I do believe it may be advertising a major legit heat wave at the end of the extended or shortly thereafter. Not only that but we would probably also be looking at high humidity where the heat indexes would be scorching. Again, this is contingent on the GEFS being correct with its idea of retrograding the long wave pattern westward. One other thing I would like to point out from the map above are the regions circled on the coast line in Texas/Mexico and down the SE coast/Florida. I feel the pattern being advertised is actually a very good one for seeing US impact from any possible developing Hurricanes. The circled regions are where I would favor any landfall though I wouldn't rule out other portions of the gulf. As far as our region the pattern isn't great as it argues an Hurricane would landfall OBX or southward, anything north of that it argues for a recurve before any impact. But I will say it is a decent look for possible remnants for anything that may impact the SE.

Was in Maine (except for the first day in the 90's temps were pretty much mid 70's into the low 80's, we had some nights where the temps dropped into the mid 50's) so I am pretty much going by what the anomalies maps were showing. Wonder if the lack of moisture through your localized area may be playing a part in your temps.

Go to tropical tidbits and glance through the temp anomalies seen for the last few days. Seeing a lot of neg temp anomalies. Don't know what your avg temps are but we are entering the hottest time of the year so though it may seem hot it may still be under temp avgs. As far as precip I did post what I was thinking we would see. 'As far as precip through mid-month. The GEFS has been consistently showing 2-3+ inches through the east in the upcoming 2+ week period. This is not what I would call a drought as some believe we are headed to but neither is it a deluge. It is just pretty typical of what we would expect at this time of year. Now one thing I will point out is the uniform look it has with the precip totals which is misleading. What we will more then likely see are small regions of jackpots (4-5+ inches) and small regions of minimal rainfall (under an inch) and this is due to the nature of how we will see the majority of the precip. Most of the rain we will see will come from popup thunderstorms through this period. And as most are aware these are somewhat localized events and you can see huge discrepancies in just small distances. Now where these will occur throughout the period is anyone's guess as for the most part they will be highly dependent on day to day smaller scale features that will initiate them.'

I was just looking over the anomalies and actually the GEFS did a pretty good job with the 500's and the temp anomalies for the 5 day period at the end of its extended. It didn't pick up the hurricane and the -temp departures that came with it in the deep south but that is to be expected. But the overall pattern it pretty much nailed with the troughing in the east and on the west coast with ridging in the southwest. Can't grab a 5 day on temp profiles for that period of time but just kind of looking through each day I get the impression it may have been a little over done with the heat in the west but it looks to have done a good job with the neg temp anomalies through the central and towards the eastern US. I would probably give it a solid B for it's extended from what I can see.

Never really get excited one way or the other with ENSO forecasts until late in the summer heading into fall. Don't know how often the forecasts in the spring and the early summer have been complete busts.

You seem surprised. You must be new here.

The problem with not tilling is that the soil gets compacted over time which hinders good root development on your plants. It also will hinder rainfall penetration into the soil where more of it will run off then in a looser soil. Also the more compacted soil will tend not to retain as much moisture. During the hotter portions of the summer you really want that extra moisture. One option if you don't want to till is to dig a hole and turnover the soil where your plants will actually be. This is what i normally do because unfortunately tilling is not an option at this time due to space constraints. Normally will mix fertilizer and prime top soil in at the same time as well. Typically you want the hole almost as wide as the plant will be above the surface as quite often the root system will match its expanse.

Nah, I am going to have to get my machete out.