Turning Up the Dial On The Torch
May 23, 2012; 10:08 AM
Wednesday, 11:40 A.M.
Record high temperatures took a bath yesterday over portions of Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska and South Dakota. The 100 in Scottsbluff, Neb., marked the earliest date in recorded history of reaching triple digits. And this is just the start of a run of hot weather leading into the Memorial Day weekend. Look at a series of snapshots of forecast 850mb temperatures from the 0z Wednesday GFS model run, starting with Thursday evening:
That ribbon of air with temperatures of 15 C or higher covers an area from the central and southern Plains, across the Mississippi Valley, and into the Midwest, the Great Lakes and the Ohio Valley. Temperatures will get well into the 80s in most of this area, and some will have no trouble getting past 90.
Now look at the same forecast for Saturday evening:
Notice how it extends all the way to the southern New England and mid-Atlantic coasts by then. It may be a bit challenging to get temperatures into the mid and upper 80s in southern New England due to clouds and a chance of showers and thunderstorms, but to the south it should get that warm, and maybe higher. You will also note the 20 C isotherm now noses out into Illinois and southern Indiana.
By the end of the day on Memorial Day, there may not be many places above 20 C, but it will be close, especially if models like the European are to be believed. Still, the GFS shows an even larger area of warmth:
That's a lot of the country from the central and southern Plains to the East Coast with a good chance of being in the 90s for Memorial Day. Throw in some reasonably high humidity, and you have the making of some typical July weekend.
In the tropics, we're still dealing with a northeast-southwest oriented corridor of moisture from the eastern Pacific through central America and across the Northwest Caribbean. Look at the IR image of the region:
There is nothing immediately apparent that would lead me to believe another low is about to form somewhere underneath all this. Yet, just as the models correctly sniffed out Alberto, they are still very suggestive of another low in the next 5 to 10 days coming from this area of disorganized showers and thunderstorms. It's not likely to happen into the weekend, and maybe not even through it, but it is certainly something that one cannot rule out. Think of it, though. How often could you see two named storms before the season officially begins? How wild would that be?
The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of AccuWeather, Inc. or AccuWeather.com