Each and every post these days seems to consist of heat, cold, snow and rain and on the ‘extreme’ end of the ledger.

Yesterday saw widespread upper 90s at the beaches to mid 100s in the deserts of Southern California.

Firstly, here’s the initial upper air pattern according to the ECMWF which continues to support this extreme setup.

Monster West Coast ridge is bringing the hot, dry, windy conditions to the West, while the Bermuda high has slipped off the Eastern Seaboard, the big trough diving all the way to the Gulf Coast brings record chill and even snow to Illinois, the NW suburbs of Chicago to be exact as well as the mountains of Tennessee above all places. The positioning of that unusually deep and southward extending trough along with the ridge just offshore, allows a deep plume of truly tropical moisture to stream north all the way from central America.

Check out this amazing NOAA satellite image showing the cloud extending from Central America up the East Coast.

Here are some of those Southern California records. Downtown Los Angeles (Civic Center) hit 102 yesterday which was the warmest reading there in 2 years.

A lot of the reason behind the heat is this… an unprecedented 100% drought in California.

Often with extreme heat in California, come dangerous, destructive and deadly wildfires and this heatwave is no different.

Check out this amazing image of the wild fires burning in Southern California as well as northwest Mexico.

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On the COLD side…

Incredibly LATE season snow for Illinois, even Tennessee!

Here’s a graphic showing the coverage of today’s snow over northern Illinois.

Some meteorology behind the snowfall from the NWS.

A very cool Thursday Night set the stage, with temperatures in the 40s falling into the 30s in some places overnight.  As temperatures cooled in the lowest few thousand feet of the atmosphere even more late overnight into early Friday morning, partially helped by saturating (a cooling effect) from the influence of a low pressure system overhead, snow reached a lower and lower altitude before melting.  Eventually, it would begin reaching the ground just outside of the western Chicago metro around 5 am.

   Here is a look at the anomalous weather system.  On the weather balloon launches across North America on Thursday evening, the -30°C observed at 500mb (~18,000 ft) at NWS Davenport, IA was the third coldest in all of North America on the 00Z soundings (outside of two in far northern Canada).  This speaks to just how deep the cold was, and enough so to briefly support a wet snow mixing in this morning.

Statement by NWS: 2nd Latest Snow Ever Recorded In Rockford, IL.

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE CHICAGO IL
603 PM CDT FRI MAY 16 2014 /703 PM EDT FRI MAY 16 2014/

…SECOND LATEST SNOWFALL ON RECORD OBSERVED IN ROCKFORD TODAY…

AT 706 AM CDT SNOW BEGAN OFFICIALLY FALLING AT THE GREATER
ROCKFORD AIRPORT AND IT CONTINUED TO SNOW…MIXED AT TIMES WITH
RAIN UNTIL 836 AM CDT. NO SNOW ACCUMULATED WHICH MAKES THE DAILY
SNOWFALL TOTAL FOR ROCKFORD FOR TODAY A TRACE. ONLY ONCE BEFORE IN
RECORDED WEATHER HISTORY FOR ROCKFORD HAS THERE BEEN A TRACE OF
SNOW ON OR AFTER THIS DATE IN MAY AND THAT WAS BACK ON MAY 24TH
1925 WHEN A TRACE OF SNOW WAS REPORTED.

You may have to look at this for prove it actually snowed in the mountains of Tennessee but here was Mount LeConte earlier today.

Some snow totals courtesy of WeatherNation.

As well as snowy for some, it was also cold, record cold with Sioux Falls, SD dipping to a frosty 23 this morning. A record for the date and coldest so late, Sioux City, IA recorded a record low of 28 while Kansas City hit a record 35.

This morning’s national lows.

On the wet & stormy side…

Here was the radar from my weather channel app earlier. Note the plume of heavy rains pushing up the EC.

24 hour rainfall totals over the Mid-Atlantic. Via NWS.

Via Howard Bernstein, WUSA9 Meteorologist.

Meanwhile, Miami had a close call with a funnel/tornado. Check out this image captured by the NWS Miami as a funnel lowers over the city.

Stunning image captures a lightning strike near Miami Airport. Via @WPLGLocal10

A look at the longer range pattern tomorrow!

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