Ready for a HOT, WET SUMMER? :)
After a short spell of very comfortable weather, blistering heat has returned to the interior Southwest. In the deserts from southern California to Arizona, temperatures will climb well over 100 degrees each of the next several days. In Phoenix, the temperature will peak around 110, and in Palm Springs we think it will reach 112 degrees. Humidity or no humidity, that is hot! Typically, when the interior Southwest is blazing hot, the coast stays under the influence of cooler marine air with temperatures no higher than the 70s. A slow-moving storm will bring soaking rain to much of the Northeast the next few days. The graphic above shows the track. North of the center, there will be a steady, soaking rain. Farther south, heavy thunderstorms will rattle windows and produce gutter-gushing rain. The graphic below shows approximately how much rain will fall across the region Thursday and Friday. Additional rain will occur Friday night and Saturday, mainly in New England. It seems that such a short time has passed since we were talking about the likes of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Wilma. Now it starts all over again. Officially, the Atlantic Hurricane season runs from June 1st through November 30th. Though storms can occur anytime during the year, the peak period is from late July through mid-October as shown on the graph below. A monsoon is a seasonal wind which can be either wet or dry. In India, the rainy monsoon runs from June until September. During this period, moist, tropical winds are jammed into the western part of the country where the flow is forced abruptly upward by the mountainous terrain. The result is persistent and often excessive rainfall. This year, the wet monsoon started a week or two early in India. This week, heavy rain has occurred up and down the west coast with a smaller section of land having excessive rainfall amounts. At Ratnagiri, India, rainfall has exceeded two feet since Monday! A storm stalled near Brownsville will continue to pump tropical moisture into Texas for at least another 24 hours. There is an outside chance that the storm will develop a better circulation and get a name, but that will have little bearing on its future impact. Regardless, it will continue to dump heavy rain on southeastern Texas and cause more flash flooding. |
