GaWx

This was upgraded to TS Alex with 50 mph winds at 2AM EDT.

The latest weekly as well as May, 2022, overall, were the coldest for their respective periods in Nino 3.4 since 1999: Weekly: https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/wksst9120.for Monthly: https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/ersst5.nino.mth.91-20.ascii Related to this, the met. spring SOI of +16.8 was the 2nd highest on record by a good margin going back to 1876. Only 1917's +18.3 was higher: https://data.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/SeasonalClimateOutlook/SouthernOscillationIndex/SOIDataFiles/MonthlySOIPhase1887-1989Base.txt

Don, Nice catch about this map's climo base! JB is notorious for these kinds of tricks. I also try to keep in mind biases/agenda of the messenger. I realize these could go either way depending on the messenger, but JB has over the decades pushed against GW and tends to be cold biased, regardless (example: his cold biased E US winter fcasts). Another thing to keep in mind is the strength of the current La Nina. The latest weekly as well as May, 2022, overall, were the coldest for their respective periods in Nino 3.4 since 1999: Weekly: https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/wksst9120.for Monthly: https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/ersst5.nino.mth.91-20.ascii Related to this, the met. spring SOI of +16.8 was the 2nd highest on record by a good margin going back to 1876. Only 1917's +18.3 was higher: https://data.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/SeasonalClimateOutlook/SouthernOscillationIndex/SOIDataFiles/MonthlySOIPhase1887-1989Base.txt Besides the obvious BN E and C Eq. Pac., La Nina in summer favors BN in W. S America, part of W Africa, and S Asia (per bottom right of maps below): So, JB is taking advantage of using very warm climo of 1991-2020 combined with La Nina climo favoring cool low latitudes this time of year. One more thing: this is merely a forecast of 46 days as opposed to actual. So, it may not even verify closely. Maybe there is a cold bias of the Euro weeklies in June/July at these low latitudes.

I ended up near 2.5" of rainfall for May IMBY. Whereas we had a nice ~2.2" 5/21-31, that still leaves us with only 8.75" since mid November and continued D3 (severe drought) conditions. If we don't get some decent rainfall by this weekend, I'll probably resume lawn irrigation early next week.

18/9/5

We received ~0.15" late last night. Whereas 0.15" isn't much, even that is close to how much one irrigation provides. Plus it happened late at night, a near ideal time for lawn benefits and near when I normally irrigate. The recent drought is making me appreciate more just getting modest amounts. We're getting more rain now. We were already near 2.25" month to date as of this morning. That's not too shabby considering we were only near 0.30" one week ago and that the 2.25" was enough to already make it the wettest month since January here. Edit: We got an additional ~0.15" this afternoon getting us to ~2.40" for the MTD.

I understand, especially with the drought. This evening's band of storms gave me only ~0.10". But the airport got 0.54". Below is the CoCoRaHS map of Chatham County that incorporates all of yesterday's rains. The largest amounts were over Skidaway Island with 2-2.5". The smallest amounts (~2/3") were over the NW part of the county, including the airport. Next lowest amounts of ~3/4-1" were from Dutch Island/Thunderbolt eastward through Wilmington/Tybee Islands. Mid county got ~1.25-1.75".

Welcome to summertime thunderstorms in the south! Admittedly, I got lucky with those two isolated storms. Hopefully you're getting more from this third more widespread storm.

That 2nd thunderstorm ended up giving me ~0.25" to get me to ~0.75" for the day. That will go up as I'm now I'm getting a 3rd storm, including a nearby CTG strike. Meanwhile, the more inland airport (KSAV) is finally getting some measurable rainfall as they got neither of the first two storms that I got. Edit: The 3rd storm ended up being the wettest at ~ 1"! The total rainfall from my area to Hunter ended up being in the ~1.6-1.75" range, which makes it slightly wetter than 1/16/22 and thus the heaviest since 11/5-7/2021. At KSAV, the total was much lighter at 0.64" but even that was the heaviest in 2 months.

Well, how about this, a 2nd heavy thunderstorm just developed within an hour! We already had ~1/2" from the first one. We may just get that long awaited 1"+ day after all!

We've been getting thunder/lightning, something I can't even recall anytime recently. And now it is actually raining heavily! Celebration!! Before this we had had only 0.30" this month and only 6-7" since mid November. We hadn't had 1"+ since mid January. Will this be the first since then? Edit: No because it lasted only ~15 minutes. But that was still enough to deposit a beautiful ~1/2", which is equivalent to 2-3 waterings. Radar shot as of 2:42 PM: beautiful!

Today was rather disappointing as there was no rain in this area despite the likelihood of rain. We're only near 0.30" for May to date and quite dry since mid November with a severe drought. But we still have good chances over the next few days.

The highs in the area have been 95-96 (96 here), the hottest so far this year. Tomorrow should be similar followed by slightly cooler (88-90 highs) along with daily chances of rain. The drought in this area has worsened since last week as expected with a larger area of D2. I continue to irrigate my lawns at night. Also, GA as a whole has worsened with increased drought coverage:

Further to the above, the severe drought (D2) continues here with no rain the next 4 days along with forecasts of near record highs in the middle 90s. Thu and Fri. That means that May 1-20th will have had no more than ~0.3". Since way back on 11/8/21, both KSVN and KSAV have had only one 1"+ rain and that was back on Jan 16th! Normal 1"+ events during that period would number ~5-6. The next chance for rain is this weekend. This time series chart of daily rainfall at KSVN over the last 12 months shows very well the stark contrast between the quite wet period 6-12 months ago and the sudden very dry period since: @gtg947h @Awesomesauce81

That's about how it looks down here, too, for this week. Going back 6 months, my area and nearby has been about the driest in the entire SE US thanks largely to La Nina. The closest official station to here, Hunter AAF (KSVN), has had a mere 6.2" of rainfall since 11/14/21 vs a normal of 21" meaning only 30% of normal! This followed an equally wet six month prior period. (see chart below). Our area is now in severe drought, the worst in GA (see below) and at least as bad as any location in the SE including E NC. I've been regularly irrigating at my house lately based on this and because some of the soil feels like concrete. KSAV, the more inland airport station, has also been similar though not as dry with near 45% of normal. May so far has had a mere fraction of an inch so far with no big rains forecasted anytime soon along with middle 90s for highs later this week. This will only make things worse.

It has been dry down here, too. For me, this dryness has been the proverbial double edged sword. I've been absolutely loving the good number of days with low dewpoints this spring for comfortable outdoor activities in advance of the almost guaranteed long summer doldrums of heat and humidity. Late last evening was the latest opportunity taken advantage of with a walk in the mid to upper 60s and dewpoints near 50 resulting in no sweating. But on the negative side, soils are dry due to rainfall being only near 50% of normal since 12/1/21 (40% of normal this month) thus necessitating irrigation of the grass just to keep it in halfway decent shape. (Temperatures this meteorological spring have averaged a hair warmer than normal.)

Despite the offshore low moving closer to land, there was an additional surge of drier air mid to late this afternoon coming in on steady N to NE winds flowing down E SC coast and into upper SE GA allowing for lower dewpoints into the evening even after the climo time for lowest dewpoints had passed. So, we enjoyed one more very comfy day by mid-May standards. What a nice week it has been to this point! Makes me look forward to October.

At 11 AM today at KSAV, the dewpoint had plunged to 34. It typically doesn't get lower than that in May (especially this late) there although it has done so earlier in the month per records: Lowest KSAV May dewpoints back to 1951 I've been able to find (all were between 10 AM and 4 PM): 27 F 5/2/1963 29 F 5/4/1971 30 F 5/8/1989 30 F 5/1/2006 34 F 5/19/1976 34 F 5/10/2022 34 F 5/9/1967 34 F 5/8/1960 35 F 5/27/1961: this one is the most notable for being so late in the month

I just took an unusually pleasant 2nd week in May evening walk here with it in the low 60s, a nice NE breeze, and dewpoint near 50. I didn’t sweat at all. It is now 60. Such a nice change from much of last week when it got as hot as 93 with summer-like humidity!

Larry Cosgrove forecasts for 2022 tropical numbers, tropical main tracks, and JJAS temperature anomalies:

Welcome back spring! After summer-like wx during some of last week, my area is pleasant today and this will last through Thursday it appears with dewpoints mainly in the 50s and 40s til then. Doesn’t get much better than that, especially considering the duration, in the 2nd week of May! But with the good there’s often also the bad. The bad is lack of rainfall as we’ve had only half our normal since 12/1/21! We might get an increase late week due to a retrograding low coming westward from well offshore, but that is highly speculative as amounts may still end up light. Regardless, I’ll enjoy the next 4-5 days!

KSAV made it to 92 at 4 PM, hottest by 3 for this year to date. Here's the US map as of 4 PM EDT (20Z) showing the highest temperatures (and heat indices for that matter) in the US outside of some SW desert locations are in the deep SE: (Edit: high was 93, which is two off the record)

In this area and extending into far S SC and most of the FL peninsula, we're having both the hottest temperatures of the year to date and the hottest in the entire country as of noon EDT. This is being made possible at least in this area by very dry soils resulting from rainfall of only 50% of normal since December. Non-irrigated soils not in the shade are almost as hard as concrete. At noon, it is already 87 at KSAV vs 79 at noon yesterday, when the high was the hottest of the year to date at 89, and vs 83 at noon two days ago when the high was 87. So, 90s are easily on the way with partly sunny skies and hot westerly winds not allowing for modification by the cooler ocean. 850 temps will peak near +18C. Noon EDT temperatures:

The airport’s high today was 89, making it the hottest of the year to date. So far, May is coming in significantly warmer than normal. Not good as this is enhancing the dry conditions. Only ~10% of December-April periods were drier than 2021-22.

Thank you. Hoping y'all get just the right amount of seabreeze collision related rainfall this summer. That is such a cool phenomenon as it is pretty unique (in the US at least) to the FL peninsula! Based on looking at the records, the good news for my area even with La Nina continuing is that the correlation to dry in summer/early fall is lower than the rest of the year. There have been a nontrivial number of La Nina summers/early falls that were wet although tropical moisture was often an important part of the equation as one might expect. Whereas I don't want any direct tropical hits from anything strong, I'd welcome the moisture associated with either indirect effects or nondamaging systems, which are thankfully much more common than damaging here. Better yet would be plentiful ordinary summertime late day convection. Hopefully Hogtown is spared anything bad this year! With La Nina now likely to continue, we both may have to be on our toes this season as per climo.