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Central PA Summer 2026 Discussion/Obs Thread
pawatch replied to Voyager's topic in Upstate New York/Pennsylvania
58 degrees this morning. Looks like my record high for the month is going to be 102 degrees. 3.22” precipitation for the month. Normal precipitation is 4.47” That 1.79” sure helped this week. -
There's zero indication that the wet pattern will end. In fact the super Nino guarantees a stormy pattern.
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SAL is another big factor, esp. in recent years. 2024, the SAL was dominant in the MDR. The 700 and 500 temp anomalies were impressive, and that why the heart of the season was squashed and why we did not get the fcst "2005 redux" in 2024. I recall seeing 0 C at 500 in part of the MDR in Aug-Sep 2024, and this was w/ no ridging present. It is not often you get 0 C at 500. In the core of a Cat 1 hurr or higher and under the hottest continental ridges. So to have 0 C at 500 just "there" w/ nothing atypical synoptically, you want to take about "extreme?" The SAL was so strong in 2024, it extended to the EPAC and that suppressed things big time initially, resulting in the latest first NS in the EPAC since reliable satellite records (1970). In 2025, what stood out was the African dust outbreaks. They usually peak in June and wane in July, but they went on into Sep, again knocking down MDR formation big time. 2025 was unique b/c all the major hurricanes except Melissa peaked and got intense outside the deep tropics. So what happened in just the last two seasons in the ATLC were non-trivial as to suppression of TC activity, and something that needs to researched more and included in the discussion. It is esp. important b/c of all the TC basins in the world, the ATLC is the most variable.
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Far too much focus on SSTs -- column TPW (and by extension instability) and shear is what it is all about. All the anomalously high SST/OHC is meaningless if the atmosphere does not cooperate. Something that seems to elude many -- "but the ocean is SO hot!!!" TCs are more tenuous that the MSM thinks. A lot has to line up for one to form, and even more for one to get intense. SSTs are more than warm enough around the globe in much of the tropics and subtropics year-round to support strong TCs, and how many named storms form each year and how many get intense? And formation is confined to distinct parts of the year in each basin, again showing how what goes on in the atmosphere dictates things. Of all the 3 primary factors, SSTs are least important. You can get hurricanes up to Cat 2 status w/ SSTs below the 26 C threshold, and min hurricanes as low as 20 C as long as the TPW and shear are favorable. But if the wind shear is high and/or the column is dry, you get nothing to even develop in the first place, despite torch SSTs! You don't need to do research or run a model to see this, Empirical observations alone over time clearly show this. That's a sig problem these days, some are so caught up in "what the models say" they forget to look at what actually happens in the real world, currently and in the past. Empirical. real-world observations override what models say every time. Basic common sense and logic!
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GFS has been persistent in showing this thing for many days now, but that mean little b/c it is the GFS and it is beyond a week. However, the recent ECMWF runs now show a distinct wave moving W S of the subtropical ridge and then recurving offshore. But @ineedsnow *only* cares about this I bet from the 00z GFS! "It's just GOTTA come up!"
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Don't get me started on 1-in-X year events! There is a fundamental misunderstanding of what they say. The reference points/periods for climo to calculate such a stat for any given location and wx parameters are fluid/relative, to say the least. But never let such details get in the way of hype or a narrative! Event return periods that extend beyond our period of record are curved to fit our period of record based on numerous statistical assumptions. This means just one extreme event can drastically alter return rates, giving a false sense of what actually has changed. If you divide whole world into county warning areas like what is done in the U.S., then you would have about 394,000 zones. So a 1-in-a 1000 yr flood would happen many, many times a year. It is not exactly 394x as the math would suggest due to non-linear factors, but it is still a lot, relatively speaking, and this is just for one type of wx event. How many are there out there to measure/quantify? And this is just choosing CWA for spatial, you can play games w/ numbers forever, slicing and dicing down location areal coverage to a single point for any wx parameter/measurement, and create any scenario as to frequency and trends to your hearts consent! This goes back to "how to lie (or exaggerate) w/ statistics" notion. The law of large numbers and averages results in many 1-in-X year events every day all over the world. It is similar to winning the lottery, odds are astronomically against, but many ppl each year win despite these odds b/c so many ppl play, and many repeatedly, so this *guarantees* there will be winners! It is a big planet and the atmosphere has endless combinations that in are high flux all the time, and it is going to split out big/record wx events at times w/ their frequencies waxing and waning over various time cycles naturally.
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WPAC, Indian Ocean, and Southern Hemisphere Tropical Cyclones
Nomz replied to 1900hurricane's topic in Tropical Headquarters
Pretty telling that for Dolphin the Google model has almost zero landfalling C3s, minimal c1-2s, and a majority of landfalling TSs. -
2026-2027 Super El Nino
snowman19 replied to Stormchaserchuck1's topic in Weather Forecasting and Discussion
The EPAC hurricane season off to a big start too with lots more to come -
2026-2027 Super El Nino
snowman19 replied to Stormchaserchuck1's topic in Weather Forecasting and Discussion
Maybe you missed the part of my post where I clearly said fall and winter not July and August? It’s going to be hilarious when the PDO flips positive by the end of this fall along with a massive displaced Aleutian Low spinning in the NPAC
