With the exceptions of the Pacific Northwest, it’s been a rather cool first half to July with even areas which saw a record warm June, cooler than normal.

The core of cool with large area of 4 below normal is centred pretty much where the wettest ground is. July opens coolest in 31 years for Chicago with parts of downstate Illinois under water following it’s wettest June on record.

Even for the Southwest where Las Vegas recorded it’s warmest June, it’s been below normal here too through the first 12 days of this summer’s 2nd month.

There’s a lot of hysteria these days regarding June and the first 6 months of this year being warmest on record throughout the Western continent.

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However, there’s a good explanation for this MULTIYEAR warm, dry trend and it’s not CO2 but a warm PDO.

The El Nino will peak the warmth this year and once it starts to flips, so the Pacific cools along with the GLOBAL temperature and this warm, dry stranglehold should hopefully start turning for the Western US.

That process should commence later in 2015 as winter rains begin to affect California and the Southwest.

Unfortunately it will take A LOT of rain to end the drought in California but give it 18 months or so?

There’s a lot of unknowns regarding the Pacific Northwest and the much anticipated winter rains may remain south of here.

I find it interesting however how July is turning out.

Interestingly, while the drought continues to hold up temperatures up and down Western North America overall, the flooding rains are supressing temperatures over the Plains despite the building heat this week. The heating over swampy ground is also boosting dew points into rainforest territory. Note the 80s over IA, IL, MO.

Temps are widely in the 90s over the Plains this afternoon but further north and east, the dew points are making for dangerous heat indexes.

However, the 5-day mean 2 metre temp anomaly doesn’t reflect heat but more cool. Hum.

How about the following 5 days?

and 5 days after that…

A system over the Great Lakes is responsible for this rise in heat and humidity as the air lifts north from the Gulf and this setup is triggering strong thunderstorms over N Illinois in particular.

Due to this dynamic situation, the SPC has a MODERATE risk for severe weather out and there is a tornado watch in effect over N Illinois as of this writing.

Nice visible satellite image captures this evenings thunderstorm blow ups over the Lower Midwest.

Now the heat is building over Texas and the Plains this week but does it reach 100 in Dallas for the first time this year?

See video for discussion.

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