A relatively zonal pattern across the CONUS will lead to more or less seasonal weather, with no huge swings or variations in the next few days.
Looking at the short term 500 mb map, most of the upper level flow is moving from West to East across the CONUS, so the weather probably won’t be too variable. Maybe cooler weather over the Northeast, but nothing out of the ordinary right now.
A couple of things do stick out, so we’re going to take a look at some of the main features across the US this upcoming week and beyond.
Ridging over the South Breaking Down
Over the Southern United states, ridging is set to continue, for the most part. Generally speaking, a large high pressure system is set to continue across a lot of the South.
The pattern is changing, though, as a trough looks to split the ridge into 2 main parts, one centered over the Desert Southwest, and one over the Southeast Coast. In the below map, which averages the 500 mb heights over multiple days, there is a weakness in the ridge over Arkansas and Louisiana.
This slight weakness in the ridging will be responsible for a cooldown this week, and the GEFS ensembles are showing a slightly cooler than average pattern over the next 5 days for the Plains and Midwest.
Southwest Monsoon set to Continue
Despite ridging moving towards the Desert Southwest, the monsoon is going to continue in full force. Rainfall totals for this week probably won’t be as high as last weeks, but there is still more moisture on the way.
The next 7 days precip from the WPC shows a decent amount of rainfall over the Southwestern US, with some particularly high totals across New Mexico and Arizona.
When a ridge sets up over the 4 Corners, or further East of that, like we’re going to see this week, southerly flow will continue to move moisture from the Pacific Ocean into the desert Southwest. It definitely isn’t as strong of a monsoon as we saw last week, and the ridge definitely will take a toll on some of the heavier rains. Some areas of NM saw around 4-6″ of rainfall this past week! It’s winding down but daily rain chances will continue for at least parts of the area.
Tropical Threat to the Southern Gulf Coast
The NHC continues to monitor the potential for a weak disturbance to impact the Texas Gulf Coast somewhere in the middle of this week.
Odds of formation remain low, but flooding is definitely a possibility where the tropical disturbance “makes landfall”.
The GFS shows a large area of heavy rains along the Texas Coast. Flooding is definitely a possibility moving into this week, and we’ll be keeping an eye on this possibility as we move forward. Exact totals and locations are subject to change, but it seems that regardless of whether or not the storm has a name, and regardless of how strong it is, the flood threat will exist over a portion of Southeast Texas, particularly between the Corpus Christi and Houston areas.
Big Potential West Coast Storm
Despite the fact that zonal flow is set to continue for the time being, a big storm may be headed for the Pacific Northwest around the 4th of July. Usually, these kind of strong upper level storms are pushed North into Canada, but there may be one that digs unusually far South, far enough to bring big time impacts to the Pacific Northwest/West Coast.
This will likely bring enhanced rain to the area, as well as much cooler temperatures. The areas along the West Coast may see temperatures fall well below the average for this time of the year, much more comfortable.
Loooooong-Range Outlook
Getting out past a week, details start to get fuzzy, but sometimes, there are patterns we can pick up on, and use to get an idea of what the long range might generally look like.
Looking past next week, the guidance is supporting a pretty toasty United States. The American and European ensembles generally center a pretty significant heat wave over the Western US, while the Canadian ensembles have one more over the Midwest. Either way, significant ridging looks to dominate in the long term, and the Climate Prediction Center also shows this hot weather expected to intensify and continue into the long term.
Also, lastly, there is increasing signal that indicates that the tropics may continue to be active. The American ensembles have been showing some activity in the Gulf/the Western Tropical Atlantic for a few runs now, so it’s worth mentioning. Sharing model data for this would be inappropriate, since we really can’t be too confident.
Models like to spin up fantasy systems all the time, but the GFS ensembles have shown this somewhat consistently, so I believe it’s worth mentioning as a possibility.
Others aren’t as sure on this, and looking at the European Ensemble data shows an entirely different picture.
I would definitely defer to Dr. Hazelton, but it looks like the environment across the Atlantic is set to become a lot more unfavorable as we enter July. This would indicate that a system could still be possible, but tropical cyclones usually do occur when conditions are more favorable, which looks like it may be later.
There is a lot of data to look at for a long term tropical cyclone forecast, so I’m not going to make any bold predictions. It seems like we may have one more shot before the Atlantic slows down, which is always a good signal. Either way you slice it, just keep checking the NHC for actual forecasts-these are just my thoughts.
