frostfern

I think the biggest reason those records are so hard to beat is the increased humidity. Modern agriculture with irrigation systems and a warmer GOM makes drought-driven heatwaves unlikely. July 1995 showed you don’t always need low relative humidity to break records, but that was a much shorter event driven by an unusual synoptic pattern that was ultimately transient. To get long-duration heat waves like the 1930s you need low RH.

The north-to-south temperature gradient has been too baggy. Southern Canada warm, no big heat south. Thus no jet dynamics to force convection and keep it going through the night. We’ve had enough storm damage this year on this side of the state from the March 30 and May 15 events alone. I’m not begging for a derecho here, but it seems without a better setup it’s hard to get even garden variety rains.

It’s even worse closer to the lake. I at least got a couple .25” in 10 minutes type showers the past couple weeks just east of GRR. It’s been hot enough we lose that much to evaporation every day though.

Ratio of “thunderstorm chances” in the forecast to anything of note actually happening has been abysmal for a long time now here. Desperately need a Wisconsin MCS charging across the lake. Any time now. This afternoon popup garbage avoids GRR every single time. Trash climatology getting worse.

This summer reminding me of 2018. Consistently above average temps but no extraordinary heat, no good cold fronts, lake shadow, little rain.

The northern edge of that 90 degree heat bubble could get interesting.

CAD summer.

So boring…

The ratio of actual thunder vs thunder in the forecast has been low lately over here.

Yea. I meant in the brief periods the heat gets east of the Rockies, it doesn't really reach the Great Lakes. This year the upper Midwest has been persistently troughy and it looks to return to that pattern over the next week. I like this somewhat active pattern better than having a trough over New England that puts the GL in a boring "cool drought", but it seems hot and active summers are a thing of the past.

Have to wait. There’s still a lot of CIN, but maybe the nocturnal low level jet breaks it. I’m guessing mostly garden variety, but with isolated hail or spinups possible given the shear. Don’t need a derecho IMBY.

Miss south for Michigan unless the bookend peels north. Meh.

Nudged enough N to get me excited.

I got about 2" last night IMBY. For once I-94 got the screw-zone instead of I-96.

The real ridge sticks to the plains most of the time the last decade or so it seems. At least in July and August.

Fairly impressive local rainfall in GRR with this MCV. “warm advection wing” band of convection has been parked overhead for a while now.

It's destabilizing pretty good behind the MCS wake over WI extending now over Lake MI.

The best lightning was with the small cluster ahead of the bow. There were quite a few positive CGs estimating about 2 miles to my SW. The big shelf that rolled in from the NW didn’t have much other than soft IC rumble and moderate rain. It wasn’t surface based. I see the winds did penetrate to the surface some areas though.

Stable surface layer saved me. The cell / cluster that formed out ahead of the bow meant business though. Continuous thunder with booming positive CGs going off like bombs off to my SW. I got a pretty big gust out of the south too. I was waiting for the main show to hit from the NW, but the shelf surged over with little fanfare. Stable surface layer definitely saved MBY this time, though still got a big branch down due to tree rot.

It was the same here until yesterday, and then this morning. Thankfully it wasn’t quite as bad as expected due to the overnight stable layer. Oddly, a cell that formed out ahead of the bow produced a severe gust out of the south (estimating around 60 mph) that took down a huge branch right on the house. Locust tree has major rot going on in the lower branches, so stuff was just waiting to come down. The main rear inflow jet stayed aloft at MBY though. I saw the shelf race overhead from the north right after that initial cell moved east, but hardly any wind at the surface.

I got an unforecasted quality garden variety boomer last night at 1 am. 0.5" of rain. Grass still looking some brown but slowly clawing out of the flash mini-drought.

Figures rain all misses south. Ready 2 drought indeed.

Same thing here. Cells popped up 10 miles southeast. Goose egg.

Ready 2 drought.

Bad timing and lake suppression here again. 30% POP forecast usually means 0% coverage here. Really need one of those stalled out warm fronts with nocturnal convection to get any rain here.