donsutherland1

Showers and thundershowers are possible during the weekend. Some of the thunderstorms could bring flooding downpours and strong winds. The greatest risk is tomorrow night and Sunday. Highs will generally reach the lower 80s through the middle of next week. Additional showers and thunderstorms are possible Tuesday night into Wednesday. The ENSO Region 1+2 anomaly was +3.4°C and the Region 3.4 anomaly was +1.8°C for the week centered around July 1. For the past six weeks, the ENSO Region 1+2 anomaly has averaged +2.80°C and the ENSO Region 3.4 anomaly has averaged +1.52°C. The ongoing strong El Niño will continue to strengthen through the summer. The SOI was -27.09 today. The preliminary Arctic Oscillation (AO) was -0.683 today. Based on sensitivity analysis applied to the latest guidance, there is an implied near 55% probability that New York City will have a warmer than normal July (1991-2020 normal). July will likely finish with a mean temperature near 78.0° (0.5° above normal). Supplemental Information: The projected mean would be 1.5° above the 1981-2010 normal monthly value.

Smoky sunrise.

Four photos of the smoke today:

Smoky early evening:

The continuing GOES-19 outage, which may continue into or even through this evening, is likely affecting HRRR smoke forecasts, as real-time satellite data is not present. That adds a dose of uncertainty into smoke conditions this afternoon and this evening. Here are recent conditions based on the observed data: Assuming a light westerly flow continues through this evening, some denser smoke will probably move into the New York City area this evening or early tonight.

It’s the last picture before things went down. It was prior to my photo. It is uncertain when service will be restored.

Advancing smoke shield just after a cloudy sunrise.

Despite wildfire smoke, temperatures topped out well in the 90s across the region. Highs included: Atlantic City: 99° Bridgeport: 92° Islip: 92° New York City-Central Park: 95° New York City-JFK Airport: 98° New York City-LaGuardia Airport: 98° Newark: 98° Philadelphia: 98° Temperatures will soar into the upper 80s to perhaps lower 90s tomorrow. Smoke could hold down the readings by several degrees across parts of the region. Friday will also be very warm before the temperatures ease for the weekend. Showers and thundershowers are possible during the weekend. The greatest risk is Saturday night and Sunday. Highs will generally reach the lower and perhaps middle 80s through the middle of next week. The ENSO Region 1+2 anomaly was +3.4°C and the Region 3.4 anomaly was +1.8°C for the week centered around July 1. For the past six weeks, the ENSO Region 1+2 anomaly has averaged +2.80°C and the ENSO Region 3.4 anomaly has averaged +1.52°C. The ongoing strong El Niño will continue to strengthen through the summer. The SOI was -36.56 yesterday. The preliminary Arctic Oscillation (AO) was +0.104 today. Based on sensitivity analysis applied to the latest guidance, there is an implied near 65% probability that New York City will have a warmer than normal July (1991-2020 normal). July will likely finish with a mean temperature near 78.5° (1.0° above normal). Supplemental Information: The projected mean would be 2.0° above the 1981-2010 normal monthly value.

From a little earlier this afternoon:

Bronx:

One can smell the smoke in the Bronx, as well, even as it's not as thick as that in Rhinebeck.

Climate change is taking the United Kingdom into an entirely new and hotter climate. Airport runways, malfunctioning sensors, and urbanization have little to do with these changes. There are no asphalt tarmacs or dense urban metropolises in the offshore waters experiencing a growing number of marine heatwaves. Fossil fuel-driven greenhouse gas-induced warming is mainly responsible for these outcomes. The State of the UK Climate 2025 report and Met Office summary documents a country undergoing rapid and increasingly visible climatic change. 2025 was the warmest recorded year in the United Kingdom, while the decade from 2016 to 2025 was substantially warmer than previous reference periods. Record warmth was not confined to a single season: the UK experienced its warmest spring and summer, with every month from March through August ranking among the ten warmest on record. Extreme heat is also rising faster than average temperatures, bringing more days above 30°C (86°F) and more unusually warm nights, especially in southern and urban areas. The changes extend well beyond air temperature. Northwest European waters experienced an unprecedented number of marine-heatwave days, while sea level around the UK continued its accelerating rise. Rainfall patterns are becoming more uneven, with wetter winters, more frequent extremely wet months and the continuing threat of severe seasonal drought. Spring 2025 was England’s driest in more than a century, demonstrating that a warmer climate can intensify both flooding and water scarcity. Record sunshine and exceptionally low river flows further illustrated how several interconnected parts of the climate system are shifting at the same time. The report’s central conclusion is that the United Kingdom is no longer experiencing climate change primarily as a sequence of isolated records. It is entering a different climate regime. Conditions once regarded as exceptional, such as record heat, tropical nights, marine heatwaves, intense winter rainfall and prolonged dry spells, are becoming increasingly characteristic of the present climate. The greatest risks emerge not simply from gradual warming, but from the rapid intensification of extremes that place growing pressure on public health, water supplies, agriculture, infrastructure, ecosystems and coastal communities. The United Kingdom is not merely witnessing a temporary period of unusual weather. It is living through the consequences of a human-altered climate, with each new record serving as another chapter in a story whose ending will depend on how rapidly emissions are reduced. How rapidly emissions are reduced remains a matter of choice, and it's a choice with relatively well-known consequences drawn from a large body of scientific research. Meanwhile, 2026 is producing more hot extremes. For the first time on record, the UK has reached 35.0°C (95°F) in May, June, and July.

Temperatures will soar into the 90s tomorrow and Thursday. The potential exists for a few locations, including Newark to approach or reach 100° at the height of the short period of heat tomorrow. Smoke could hold down the readings by several degrees. Friday will also be very warm before the temperatures ease for the weekend. Showers and thundershowers are possible during the weekend. The greatest risk is Saturday night and Sunday. The ENSO Region 1+2 anomaly was +3.4°C and the Region 3.4 anomaly was +1.8°C for the week centered around July 1. For the past six weeks, the ENSO Region 1+2 anomaly has averaged +2.80°C and the ENSO Region 3.4 anomaly has averaged +1.52°C. The ongoing strong El Niño will continue to strengthen through the summer. The SOI was -36.56 today. The preliminary Arctic Oscillation (AO) was -0.083 today. Based on sensitivity analysis applied to the latest guidance, there is an implied near 66% probability that New York City will have a warmer than normal July (1991-2020 normal). July will likely finish with a mean temperature near 78.7° (1.2° above normal). Supplemental Information: The projected mean would be 2.2° above the 1981-2010 normal monthly value.

A brief push of heat from an impressive heat dome over the Central and Northern Plains that sent the mercury to all-time records of 109° at Salt Lake City and 110° at Billings, MT could send temperatures into the 90s tomorrow through Thursday. The potential exists for Newark to approach 100° at the height of the short period of heat. Friday will also be very warm before the temperatures ease for the weekend. The ENSO Region 1+2 anomaly was +3.4°C and the Region 3.4 anomaly was +1.8°C for the week centered around July 1. For the past six weeks, the ENSO Region 1+2 anomaly has averaged +2.80°C and the ENSO Region 3.4 anomaly has averaged +1.52°C. The ongoing strong El Niño will continue to strengthen through the summer. The SOI was -38.53 today. The preliminary Arctic Oscillation (AO) was -0.360 today. Based on sensitivity analysis applied to the latest guidance, there is an implied near 63% probability that New York City will have a warmer than normal July (1991-2020 normal). July will likely finish with a mean temperature near 78.7° (1.2° above normal). Supplemental Information: The projected mean would be 2.2° above the 1981-2010 normal monthly value.

Temperatures will peak in the lower to middle 80s tomorrow before heat begins to push in from the Plains States. A brief push of heat from an impressive heat dome over the Central and Northern Plains that sent the mercury to all-time records of 109° at Salt Lake City and 110° at Billings, MT could send temperatures into the 90s during Tuesday through Thursday. The potential exists for Newark to approach 100° at the height of the short period of heat. Friday will also be very warm before the temperatures ease for the weekend. The ENSO Region 1+2 anomaly was +3.4°C and the Region 3.4 anomaly was +1.8°C for the week centered around July 1. For the past six weeks, the ENSO Region 1+2 anomaly has averaged +2.80°C and the ENSO Region 3.4 anomaly has averaged +1.52°C. The ongoing strong El Niño will continue to strengthen through the summer. The SOI was -38.53 today. The preliminary Arctic Oscillation (AO) was -0.478 today. Based on sensitivity analysis applied to the latest guidance, there is an implied near 63% probability that New York City will have a warmer than normal July (1991-2020 normal). July will likely finish with a mean temperature near 78.7° (1.2° above normal). Supplemental Information: The projected mean would be 2.2° above the 1981-2010 normal monthly value.

Tomorrow will again feature highs mainly in the lower 80s. Temperatures will remain in the lower to middle 80s on Monday before heat begins to push in from the Plains States. Some heat from an impressive heat dome over the Central and Northern Plains could send temperatures into the 90s near mid-month. The potential exists for Newark to approach 100° at the height of the short period of heat. The ENSO Region 1+2 anomaly was +3.4°C and the Region 3.4 anomaly was +1.8°C for the week centered around July 1. For the past six weeks, the ENSO Region 1+2 anomaly has averaged +2.80°C and the ENSO Region 3.4 anomaly has averaged +1.52°C. The ongoing El Niño will continue to strengthen through the summer. The SOI was -30.66 today. The preliminary Arctic Oscillation (AO) was -0.244 today. Based on sensitivity analysis applied to the latest guidance, there is an implied near 64% probability that New York City will have a warmer than normal July (1991-2020 normal). July will likely finish with a mean temperature near 78.8° (1.3° above normal). Supplemental Information: The projected mean would be 2.3° above the 1981-2010 normal monthly value.

The article doesn't really debunk the basis for concern about ongoing warming. In the U.S., the 1930s provided a glimpse of what aridification would be like from the combination of a series of exceptional droughts and poor agricultural practices. Now, with rising temperatures, the Dust Bowl Era extremes are gradually being replaced. Now, let's go to the article. If the climate were relatively stable, one should see a similar tendency with cold and hot extremes. At longer timeframes, one should also see both diminishing. Key excerpts from the article: Regarding Cold Extremes: The incidence of daily TMin records has declined in all regions with the lowest CONUS value of 5.3 occurring in 1998–2012 then ending in 2025 at only 7.9 per station per 15-yrs. This represents a drop of over half from the pre-1997 15-yr values. The relative coherence of the separate regions is also notable with very little variation from the CONUS average in the past 30 years... The event of Feb 1899 is clearly evident as the most extreme event for the CONUS but there are several in the 7–8 °F (~ 4 C) range up until the mid-1980s. From that point, extreme area-averaged cold has almost vanished as only three of the 29 years since 1996 achieved negative departures, all of which were relatively small. Regarding Hot Extremes: From the fewest daily records “centered” around 1970, all regions show some level of rise to the present. The most recent 15-year period for the CONUS experienced 21.1 daily TMax records, the most since 1936–1950, yet well below the highest of 35.1 in 1925–1939. Regarding Heat vs. Cold: The sum of days in extreme heat/cold declined from over 120 in the 1930s to about 75 since 1960. The conclusion here would be that the CONUS has experienced a decline of around 30% of these durative extreme events in the past 100 years. Along with this decline has been an increase in heatwave days vs. cold wave days since the 1970s, mainly due to the increase in heatwave days in the West (Fig. 10) and the decline in cold wave days overall. These differences are consistent with what one would expect from a warming climate, not a stable, much less cooling one.

I strongly agree. This chart that purports to represent rural U.S. temperatures is badly flawed. I'm not surprised that there is no attribution or full inventory of stations and the years for which their data was used. However, upon further research, it seems to have originated at the Electroverse climate change denial site. The chart relies on a changing station sample, extreme geographic undercoverage (n=6) in the early period, and equal weighting of unevenly distributed stations. The combination of absolute temperature averaging and changing station composition is a fatal flaw. To illustrate the absurdity of the impact of a changing station mix. Let's say one had a mix of just Charleston and New Haven in 2025. The annual average mean for those two stations (not representative of the U.S., but that's a separate issue) would have been 60.6°. Now, if one added Casper into the mix, the new three-station average would fall sharply to 56.2°. Simply adding or removing stations has an artificial impact on the temperature average. This chart elevates the art of "cherrypicking" to new heights.

The chart implies that the mix of stations is different depending on the year. Changing mix, alone, means one is not consistently calculating the same mean across time.

Some parts of the region could see a shower or thundershower this evening or overnight. The weekend will turn somewhat cooler with highs mainly in the lower 80s. Temperatures will remain in the lower to middle 80s on Monday before heat begins to push in from the Plains States. Some heat from an impressive heat dome over the Central and Northern Plains could send temperatures into the 90s near mid-month. The potential exists for Newark to approach 100° at the height of the short period of heat. The ENSO Region 1+2 anomaly was +3.4°C and the Region 3.4 anomaly was +1.8°C for the week centered around July 1. For the past six weeks, the ENSO Region 1+2 anomaly has averaged +2.80°C and the ENSO Region 3.4 anomaly has averaged +1.52°C. The ongoing El Niño will continue to strengthen through the summer. The SOI was -19.94 today. The preliminary Arctic Oscillation (AO) was +0.262 today. Based on sensitivity analysis applied to the latest guidance, there is an implied near 65% probability that New York City will have a warmer than normal July (1991-2020 normal). July will likely finish with a mean temperature near 78.9° (1.4° above normal). Supplemental Information: The projected mean would be 2.4° above the 1981-2010 normal monthly value.

And the WMO validated it in December 2021. https://wmo.int/media/news/wmo-recognizes-new-arctic-temperature-record-of-380c

Some additional showers and thundershowers are possible early tonight. A few could bring heavy downpours. Tomorrow will feature high temperatures in the upper 80s. A few of the hot spots could approach or reach 90°. Showers or thundershowers are again possible. The weekend will turn somewhat cooler with highs mainly in the lower 80s. No excessive heat appears likely through mid-month. However, some of the guidance has grown hotter near mid-month so that situation will bear watching. The ENSO Region 1+2 anomaly was +3.4°C and the Region 3.4 anomaly was +1.8°C for the week centered around July 1. For the past six weeks, the ENSO Region 1+2 anomaly has averaged +2.80°C and the ENSO Region 3.4 anomaly has averaged +1.52°C. The ongoing El Niño will continue to strengthen through the summer. The SOI is not available due to data feed issues. This could be an extended issue. The preliminary Arctic Oscillation (AO) was +0.814 today. Based on sensitivity analysis applied to the latest guidance, there is an implied near 65% probability that New York City will have a warmer than normal July (1991-2020 normal). July will likely finish with a mean temperature near 78.9° (1.4° above normal). Supplemental Information: The projected mean would be 2.4° above the 1981-2010 normal monthly value.

Tomorrow will feature high temperatures in the lower to perhaps middle 80s and the Friday could see highs in the upper 80s. A few of the hot spots could approach or reach 90°. Showers or thundershowers are possible on both days. The weekend will turn somewhat cooler with highs mainly in the lower 80s. No excessive heat appears likely through mid-month. However, some of the guidance has grown hotter near mid-month so that situation will bear watching. The ENSO Region 1+2 anomaly was +3.4°C and the Region 3.4 anomaly was +1.8°C for the week centered around July 1. For the past six weeks, the ENSO Region 1+2 anomaly has averaged +2.80°C and the ENSO Region 3.4 anomaly has averaged +1.52°C. The ongoing El Niño will continue to strengthen through the summer. The SOI is not available due to data feed issues. This could be an extended issue. The preliminary Arctic Oscillation (AO) was +0.987 today. Based on sensitivity analysis applied to the latest guidance, there is an implied near 62% probability that New York City will have a warmer than normal July (1991-2020 normal). July will likely finish with a mean temperature near 78.8° (1.3° above normal). Supplemental Information: The projected mean would be 2.3° above the 1981-2010 normal monthly value.

All-time record heat returned to France today. The temperature reached as high as 109.4F (43.0C) today.

Tomorrow will be somewhat milder with highs in the upper 70s. Thursday will see readings return to the 80s and the Friday could see highs in the upper 80s. A few of the hot spots could approach or reach 90°. The weekend will turn somewhat cooler with highs mainly in the lower 80s. No excessive heat appears likely through mid-month. The ENSO Region 1+2 anomaly was +3.4°C and the Region 3.4 anomaly was +1.8°C for the week centered around July 1. For the past six weeks, the ENSO Region 1+2 anomaly has averaged +2.80°C and the ENSO Region 3.4 anomaly has averaged +1.52°C. The ongoing El Niño will continue to strengthen through the summer. The SOI is not available due to data feed issues. This could be an extended issue. The preliminary Arctic Oscillation (AO) was +1.023 today. Based on sensitivity analysis applied to the latest guidance, there is an implied near 61% probability that New York City will have a warmer than normal July (1991-2020 normal). July will likely finish with a mean temperature near 78.6° (1.1° above normal). Supplemental Information: The projected mean would be 2.1° above the 1981-2010 normal monthly value.