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yea feels like we're still in a La Nina thing. Gulf of Mexico has had basically no influence on our weather for like 3 years now. I haven't been tracking things much lately, but at minimum we need to start getting tropical remnants back in this area by Fall.

I feel like I should be starting the summer of record drought thread .

Awesome Paul thanks for rescuing

Yes snow in the Berks and low 20s DP is totally above normal for May. Christ you never make a forecast and come on here to troll. Get lost troll

We are so not back

Of course now the models do bring in some rain sunday afternoon

DPs in the mid-30s at the airports and mid-30s to near 40 on the mesonet. Makes for a pleasant day outside, but certainty doesn't help the dryness.

Still very good cross-model agreement on a high amplitude MJO wave pushing through the PAC come later this month. That is going to constructively interfere with El Niño and initiate another big WWB and DWKW and TC’s. June’s ENSO model runs should be very interesting…..

Really looks like El Nino might be the saving grace - hopefully anyways. Could not imagine what the PDSI could end up if we saw a 1934-type summer setup? Would be something ridiculous like -10 to -15 nationally.

Yeah for sure - I mean am I right in saying that it is mostly attributed to the "doldrums" of summer and just weaker overall systems later in summer? At least spring/very early summer you can still get some dynamic systems with big temperature swings behind fronts and such. I will say - sometimes you will (like you said) get an isolated event that has an absolutely destructive microburst in the area - if that happens in a populated area that can be a "signature event" for some people for a given year.

Why would I expect a repeat of the most severe winter on record? The 2013-14 winter locally was unlike anything in the cimate record dating back to the 1870s. It steamrolled any of the vaunted '70s winters. No winter for at least the previous 140 years could match it, but the reason no winter in the 11 years since matched it is due to global temp rises? And regarding winter 2025-26 being 2nd warmest for the CONUS...that proves my point EXACTLY. It was a Winnipeg winter here. Constant cold, constant glittery snowpack, no huge storms. The worst thing it had going for it was that the cold suppressed the big storms. 99% if it was a warmer winter it would have yielded more snow. Normies called it a harsh or even brutal winter. Tell them "but it was 2nd warmest on record in the Conus". "Conus temps" really have been one of the hot topics ever since the eastern warm winter streak ended in 2023-24.

In other news, Scott sees this, and First I have heard of this (new Kocin snowstorm book). Can anyone confirm?

26 BML.

This arctic air mass has punched way to the south: the dewpoint at Miami is down to 61!

My buddies and me did the Franconia Ridge in early May 1975 with snow showers at the base but thankfully dry on the ridge. Quite the slog through areas of deep snow in the way up via the falling waters trail. Of course a few months later we had legendary heat. Some of the guys are gone but most still here albeit many in steep decline. I’m enjoying good fortune while it lasts although my spinal stenosis and aches and pains in joints occasionally plague me. My philosophy is push through what you can…

Thought the same thing here this morning as snow was falling…

Great winter

El Niño may end up being the saving grace for the current drought situation. The April contiguous U.S. PDSI came in at -7.56 — the lowest April value on record and the 4th lowest monthly value of any month, behind only July 1934, August 1934, and March 2026. So while there was a slight improvement from March’s -7.85, the national drought signal remains historically extreme. The scary counterfactual is: what if this pattern carried into summer and then paired with a 1934-type heat regime — or something even hotter in today’s warmer baseline climate? PDSI is not a linear “temperature gauge,” so I would not casually forecast -10. But entering the warm season already near -8 leaves very little margin. A major summer heat dome, high evaporative demand, and continued precipitation deficits could push national drought severity into territory that is difficult to contextualize historically. In other words: even modest improvement matters here. Without a pattern change, this is the kind of setup you really do not want to stress-test.

Seems to be the norm, doesn’t it?

CFS summer outlook

For the record