What A Difference A Year Makes For The Southeast

Written by Mark Vogan on June 22, 2013 in United States of America with 0 Comments

The pattern over the Southeast US couldn’t be any different compared to this time last year. A wet winter and a very wet spring has helped get the majority of the region out of a drought.

The drought in recent years was of course a drought which had accumulated, worsened over a span of about 2-3 years. That’s going to have an impact on the atmosphere above for sure. It was also going to take time to eradicate.

The soils became arid, lakes and rivers soon wilted and with less natural moisture in the atmosphere in the warm season, there was more heat with more energy from the sun going directly into heating the dry ground and lower atmosphere.

Here’s how things worsened from May 8, 2007 to May 8, 2012.

southeast-drought-e1336716664924

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Drought can be directly linked to hotter than normal temperatures and it’s no real surprise that last recent summers have been amongst the hottest on record across the region.

We’re coming up to the 1 year anniversary of the hottest day on record for many Southeast Cities.

Here are a select few.

Nashville, TN 109

Columbia, SC 109 (tie)

Atlanta, GA 106

The University of South Carolina recorded a high of 113 on June, 29th, 2012 which became the hottest temperature ever recorded in the state of South Carolina.

The streak of ‘hot summers’ steams back to 2007 when conditions became abnormally dry during spring and summer and August turned out to be the hottest month on record for such cities as Atlanta.

As for this year. After record rains this spring and early summer, nature finds it’s way of correcting itself.

Here’s the current drought status for the Southeast as of June 18.

southeast_dm

The wet soils of this early summer, just with the dry soils of last year, is having feedback impacts to the atmosphere. Increasing humidity and indeed lowering heights.

Through the next 7 days. While hot, humid air will get forced from Texas up into the Big Cities of the Northeast, the Southeast stays cool and wet thanks to an upper trough. Upper energy crossing the Southeast will help keep thunderstorms active, helped triggered by daytime heating. Thunderstorms popped by the heat will keep temperatures at bay with such cities as Atlanta likely to stay in the mid-80s. This summer is likely to remain cooler and wetter than normal overall, similar to the early 2000s.

Every few decades the Southeast experiences serious drought and the last benchmark drought was back in the 50s when we last saw a strong warm signal in the Atlantic and cold signal in the Pacific. Ocean SST’s have significant influence on Southeast rainfall distribution.

Here’s the latest ECMWF rainfall forecast for the region over the next 7 days.

Courtesy/Owned by AccuWeather Pro

As you can see from the below CFSv2 weeklies. The Southeast looks to remain cooler than normal over the next 4 weeks which takes us to late July.

Week 1-2

wk1_wk2_20130620_NAsfcT

Week 3-4

wk3_wk4_20130620_NAsfcT
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