In today’s post I want to take a quick look at the final month of summer as well as the upcoming autumn period based on current pattern, global sst’s and the oncoming El Nino, what we can expect as the warm season ends?
I stand by my long term ideas for August which is backed up nicely with the CFSv2 which btw has done a terrific job since the start of last winter!
I see little real change in this spring and first half of summer-long pattern. A mixture of ridges and troughs with spells of cool and wet but in the MEANS, ridging has been king and I believe high pressure continues to rule really into at least the early half of autumn. THERE WILL BE UNSETTLED SPELLS but let’s not focus on 1-2 days but the LONGER TERM which tells the story. With the type of summer, SST profile and El Nino, these second half’s of summer into autumn can be warm and largely dry for us. Just look at 2003 as an extreme example.
SEE TODAY’S VIDEO FOR DISCUSSION!
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Back in April when I issued by summer forecast, I did believe another warmer, drier summer was very possible but I was somewhat hesitant based on the amount of water in the ground after last winter. I swayed more and more towards warmer and drier when I saw the cold pool centred over the North Atlantic which was there back in the hot, dry summer of 2003 when there was also an El Nino. We also saw solar cycle 23 just come off a max, albeit a stronger max, hence the extremity of the hot, dry spell to end that summer.
Let’s remember that the models, though showing warm and dry in the north and cool, wet in the south (of Europe), didn’t show a particularly warm, dry UK but when glancing at the SST chart for spring of 2003, there was strong similarity with the El Nino coming on, the warmer, drier spring and the CENTRAL NORTH ATLANTIC cold pool. August 2003 of course brought about Britain and Western Europe’s greatest heat wave of the modern age. While I am NOT calling for that to repeat, I do think many who are jumping on the cool, wet August aren’t seeing the bigger picture. Hopefully I am right about that because I’m sure there are folks out there hoping I get this final month of summer wrong given June and July have been good. It’s amazing how some folks fall silent and then all of a sudden pop back up when they think your about to get a forecast wrong.
Right now, based on everything I’m seeing, August is likely to open a touch cooler and more unsettled BUT I believe that ridge comes back and we may see more significant warmth.
Here’s the latest CFSv2 2-metre anomalies, August through November!
I recon precipitation starts off sluggish this autumn but increases considerably late October and especially November. I expect to see the models showing considerably above normal precip over much of Western Europe into the late autumn but I believe warmth will be slow to ease but a big turnaround may come about late November into December.
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