The Desert Southwest has been anything but “desert-like” in recent weeks with copious amounts of rainfall associated with the annual monsoon season in the states of Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and Colorado. Monsoons are well known in eastern Asia, but they also occur in other parts of the world including right here in the southwestern US. The typical time for the monsoon season in this country is from about mid-June to the end of September and it certainly got off to a quick start this year. In addition to monsoonal-aided rainfall, there will soon be an influx of tropical moisture that will contribute to additional heavy rainfall across the Southwest US and flash flooding is a serious concern.
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Arctic sea ice extent has been running at below-normal levels since the middle 1990’s at which time there was a shift in the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation to one featuring warmer-than-normal sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic Ocean. The Arctic sea ice extent headed downward after that shift and reached its lowest point about ten years ago in 2012. Since then, the Arctic sea ice has shown some resiliency and is actually not all that far from normal for this time of year.
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La Nina conditions have dominated the scene in the equatorial part of the Pacific Ocean for this winter season as it did for the prior winter season of 2020-2021. Numerous computer models suggest that these colder-than-normal sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific will last into at least the beginning part of the upcoming summer season. If so, La Nina may indeed have an impact on global tropical activity this summer as it did during the last tropical season in 2021. In addition to its impact on tropical activity in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, these back-to-back La Nina episodes have seemingly affected global temperatures during the past many months which have dropped to nearly normal levels in the latest monthly reading.
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On the heels of the Nor’easter that brought tremendous snowfall to many coastal sections of the Mid-Atlantic region and Northeast US, Arctic air plunged southward all the way down to southern Florida bringing that state some of its lowest temperatures in more than a decade. According to accuweather.com, a record low of 46 degrees was set on Sunday morning at Marathon, Florida, records were tied at Fort Pierce and Vero Beach, and it fell to the freezing mark as far south as Big Cypress National Preserve. In fact, it got so cold across Florida on Sunday morning that cold-shocked iguanas were actually falling out of trees. These cold-blooded lizards usually survive a “cold-shock” like this when temperatures fall into the 30’s or 40’s and “wake up” as temperatures rise. The Arctic air that plunged into southern Florida this weekend had its origins way up in the southern part of Alaska.
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The Tonga volcanic eruption in mid-January, was the most powerful experienced on Earth in 30 years and the resultant ash cloud is still being studied to determine if it can have an impact on global climate. There was an immediate impact in the atmosphere by the eruption as pressure spikes were noted on barographs all around the world and even some evidence that these surges continued for several days later. Satellite imagery has shown that the ash cloud reached record high altitudes, but it is still unclear as to exactly how high up it penetrated and whether the amount deposited into those layers will be enough to impact global temperatures. The 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines – the second most powerful eruption of the 20th century – did indeed cool down the planet for a couple of years.
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There is calm right now across much of the western US, but that will begin to change dramatically over the next 24 hours or so. A series of storms will impact much of the western states for an extended period of time beginning later today and continuing right through the upcoming weekend. These storms will bring significant rainfall to low-lying coastal sections from southwest Canada to California and substantial snowfall to higher elevation inland locations to be ultimately measured by the foot in many spots. In addition, severe cold will filter southward from western Canada this weekend into the Pacific Northwest and this could result in single digit cold for places like Seattle and Portland by early next week.
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Temperatures have already peaked today in Fairbanks, Alaska and are currently right around the zero degree mark and they are very likely to stay below zero during the entire time for at least the next week or so. In fact, low temperatures this weekend are likely to be near 25 degrees below zero in the midst of an on-going intense cold spell that may last right into December and will no doubt result in additional broken records. While Alaska is normally quite cold this time of year, these temperatures are well below normal in many cases - quite a contrast from recent years - and some spots are likely to end up with their coldest November on record.
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Tropical cyclone activity across the Northern Hemisphere has been below-normal in 2021 in much the same way as it was last year. Specifically, while the Atlantic Basin featured above-normal tropical activity in this year and last, the Pacific Ocean experienced below-normal conditions in both years leading the way to below-normal levels across the hemisphere as a whole. In terms of tornadoes, it has been another below-normal season in the US with no EF-5’s recorded. There was, however, tornadic activity in some unusual places in 2021 including the Mid-Atlantic and New England.
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La Nina conditions (cooler-than-normal water) developed early last year in the equatorial part of the Pacific Ocean and then intensified some during the past winter season. In the first several months of this year, water temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean have trended towards neutral, but there are signs of a resurgence in La Nina as we head towards autumn. In fact, there are signs right now that suggest the resurgence may already be underway in the central Pacific Ocean. The return of La Nina could have implications on global temperatures and also on the upcoming winter season of 2021-2022.
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The Atlantic Basin experienced the most active hurricane season on record with so many named storms (30) that the Greek alphabet had to be utilized for only the second time ever, the first being 2005. In fact, the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season was the fifth consecutive season with above-normal activity and 12 of the 30 named storms made landfall in the contiguous US, breaking the record of nine set in 1916. On the other hand, the Pacific hurricane season was well below normal in terms of overall activity with a total of 17 tropical storms and it was the least active year since 2010. The Pacific Ocean outweighs in importance the Atlantic Basin when it comes to global tropical activity which ends the year far below the normal levels of an important metric. In terms of tornado activity in the US during 2020, the year will end up below-normal and, fortunately, this year has featured no EF-5 tornadoes which are the most powerful of all.
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