GaWx

A cluster of thunderstorms has moved E into the SAV area. Rain started here just after 3PM. Heavy rain started at 3:25PM.

Edit: I ended up with 0.7”, which put me at 5.15” for full July. Hottest 101.1 7/12 & 7/29.

 Hot off the press from another source posting the 8/1/26 Cansips run of Nino SST anomalies. It is continuing the CanSIPS run trend of moving the strongest warm SST anomalies further and further east at the ~Nov peak. That’s not surprising because I’ve been suspecting a Modoki bias for it based on the past few years of analyzing it as I’ve posted a number of times here before.

 The April-June 1st runs had the warmest anomalies near the Dateline/straight Modoki (W based) in the peak month of Nov. Then the July 1st had warmest anomalies in Nov further E near 160W, more of a cross between central based and Modoki.
 

 The new Cansips run’s Nov peak shows the warmest anomalies centered near 130W, which would be centered in E Nino 3.4/Nino 3 making it pretty E based. Though this run is not as E based as 1997-8, stay tuned to future runs because the E trend of the strongest anomalies on Cansips from run to run may very well not be done due to this suspected Modoki bias.

 I can’t post it because the file size is much too large for me to have room in my account. But when it comes out on TT and WxBell, those will be smaller files and thus postable.

1 hour ago, michsnowfreak said:

My sister was born July 18, 1991. I was 8 years old and I remember how brutally hot and humid it was. My mom always talks about how it was so hot when she was born.

Out of the dozens of (pre) El Niño summers, 1991 was the 2nd hottest at Detroit on record with only the pre late developing weak Nino summer of 2018 hotter! The 3rd hottest Nino summer was 2002, which preceded a very snowy and cold winter that was one of the coldest and snowiest moderate or stronger El Niño winters there as you know.

 Darwin’s pressure has averaged 1015+ mb, a high pressure for there, for 22 straight days! That’s a new record (back to 1991) that breaks the old record of 20 days that was set during another developing super Nino, July of 2015. I’m expecting that streak to finally end tomorrow.

 1. The July SOI comes in way down at -26.8,  by far the lowest July SOI on record. The only lower ones during met. summer were the -27.7 in June of 1905 and the -27.0 in June of 1896, both incoming El Niños.

2. This brings us to 82 straight days of -SOI. Going back to when records are readily available (since 1991), this is second only to the 100 days of 1998! It’s too early to tell whether or not the current streak will reach 100 days.

8 minutes ago, donsutherland1 said:

Even as the NOAA's ongoing retreat from data has eliminated updates to the product you posted, the Copernicus provides data showing that European Russia had near to above normal precipitation during spring 2026. The part that had been somewhat dry during spring saw much above normal precipitation in June.

Compare and contrast the surface air relative humidity in Russia vs. France/Spain both in Spring and then June. The data suggested that France/Spain had explosive fire potential given the dry conditions that had emerged there. 

June 2026:

It should also be noted that a wet conditions followed by drought lead to the worst fire potential. Europe saw a severe drought develop this spring.

Relevant excerpt from the scientific literature:

"The combination of abundant fuel (resulting of the 2025 wet spring; Fig. S3d), exceptional heat, and severe summer drought fueled the intense fires that raged across northwestern Spain last year."

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-026-61756-4

Thanks, Don. But do you have any comments on the wet W, C, and N Europe (~+7”/year) averaged out year-round 2016-25 per the map I posted and how it does or doesn’t relate to CC?

2 minutes ago, wncsnow said:

Models are trending towards another heatwave starting late next week

Thanks. I see that this is calling for the hottest being 101 at CAE, which would be their hottest of the summer to date. This reminds me that I forgot to mention that CAE finally reached 100 on July 28th although Augusta still hasn’t.

1 hour ago, bluewave said:

July 1991 actually had a cooler El Niño-like -0.52 pattern across the CONUS compared to the record warmth this July at +2.4.

July 1991

73.87°F

-0.52°F

Climatologist49 @climatologist49.bsky.social

· 1d

It's going to be a close call, but it now appears more likely than not that July 2026 will be the warmest month on record in the Contiguous U.S. As of today, we are essentially tied with July 1936 and July 2012.

 

 

 

 Chris, my point is that the summer of 1991 didn’t follow the pattern of the mean of the other 5 as it was net warmer than normal in the E 1/2 of the Conus vs it being colder than normal for the other 5 years averaged out:

 Whereas far W Russia/E Ukraine have averaged drier than normal, check out the W, C, and N Europe precip. anomalies over the last 10 years. They’ve been averaging wetter than normal by ~0.5 mm/day, which is ~0.02”/day or ~7”/year wetter than normal. Is this by chance driven by wetter winters? Does anyone have a breakdown by seasons?

 Any comments?

@WolfStock1@donsutherland1

35 minutes ago, PhiEaglesfan712 said:

I can even see the el nino being so strong that it carries over into a 2nd year, but ending in fall 2027. This will give a head start to developing la nina, which peaks very strong in 2028-29, kind of like 1988-89. It will probably be a one-year la nina, but boy, will it be very strong. 

Do you mean El Niño possibly carrying over like 1957-8/1958-9? That’s the closest I could find followed perhaps by 1940-1/1941-2.

38 minutes ago, WolfStock1 said:

Re: "Wildfire swept" - I hope people don't think that's due to CC.   Because if so - look what Europe as a whole shows:

 

It's an extremely low wildfire year across Europe as a whole.

https://gwis.jrc.ec.europa.eu/apps/gwis.statistics/seasonaltrend

Based on all that I’ve read, the role of CC in overall wildfire frequency/avg size is complex. One thing it is doing is increasing the green-ness of the Earth overall, which is a good thing but which itself also increases amount of fuel for burning. Also, where it is causing drier conditions on average, that along with heat increases fire danger. But wildfire stats, depending on what you examine, don’t necessarily show that wildfires have increased over the decades and in some cases have shown marked decreases. Some of that is likely due to better firefighting resources.

 Even down here the dewpoints are actually down to 66-67! That’s the lowest I’ve seen quite possibly all month. Temp is 93.3 here vs 100.5 exactly 24 hrs ago (high was 101.1). Skies still have ugly haze with only a few clouds. Winds are light/variable vs yesterday’s hot SW winds.

 Arctic ice area currently isn’t doing bad at all vs the avg for 2013-24, perhaps helped by the relatively cold 80N+:

Arctic ice area currently isn’t doing bad at all vs the avg for 2013-24, perhaps helped by the relatively cold 80N+:

34 minutes ago, Met1985 said:

Huge improvements on the current drought monitor for several of yall down east.

Indeed, much of NC improved. But SE SC still is in pretty bad shape for now as they hardly changed:

 Darwin has had 21 straight days of 1015+ mb pressure. Based on records back to to 1991, that’s a new record long string breaking the old record of 20 days set in Aug of 2015.

2 hours ago, bluewave said:

This July was the opposite temperature composite from the other developing super El Niño years.

Notice the record warmth focused in the Rockies and Upper Plains. Rapid City, SD just tied their warmest July.

That’s where the coolest anomalies during the July super El Niños were focused in the past. Notice the past developing super El Niños were among the coolest.

 

 

Time Series Summary for Rapid City Area, SD (ThreadEx) - Month of Jul Warmest Average Temperatures
Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending.

1	2026	79.7	2
-	2007	79.7	0
2	2006	79.3	0
3	2012	78.4	0
4	2002	78.3	0
5	1954	77.7	0
6	1974	77.3	0
7	2017	77.1	0
8	2003	77.0	0
-	1989	77.0	0
9	1955	76.9	0
10	1960	76.8	0

 

Time Series Summary for Rapid City Area, SD (ThreadEx) - Month of Jul Coolest Average Temperatures
Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending.

1	1992	64.3	0
2	1993	65.1	0
3	1972	65.6	0
4	1950	66.9	0
5	1958	67.0	0
6	1971	68.0	0
7	2009	68.1	0
8	1944	69.0	0
9	1968	69.1	0
10	1962	69.2	0
11	2014	69.5	0
12	2018	70.2	0
13	2010	70.4	0
-	1979	70.4	0
14	2023	70.5	0
15	2019	70.6	0
-	1995	70.6	0
-	1967	70.6	0
16	1994	70.7	0
-	1982	70.7	0
-	1973	70.7	0
-	1948	70.7	0
17	1996	70.8	0
-	1986	70.8	0
-	1951	70.8	0
18	1997	70.9	0
19	2015	71.0	0

 The hot summer of 1991 was an exception.

12 minutes ago, Coach McGuirk said:

The supercell started in Richmond, VA. Dropped a tornado on the James river.  Could have been anywhere. 

Tornadic waterspout is the answer:

A tornadic waterspout is a true tornado that forms over water or moves from land to water. It develops downward from a severe thunderstorm, bringing high winds, large hail, and lightning. [1, 2, 3]

46 minutes ago, Coach McGuirk said:

That is literally the most idiotic answer ever.  I want an answer from Wakefield NWS and they won't answer either. 

"Tornadic waterspouts", also accurately referred to as "tornadoes over water", are formed from mesocyclones in a manner essentially identical to land-based tornadoes in connection with severe thunderstorms, but simply occurring over water.[22] A tornado which travels from land to a body of water would also be considered a tornadic waterspout.[23] Since the vast majority of mesocyclonic thunderstorms in the United States occur in land-locked areas, true tornadic waterspouts are correspondingly rarer than their fair-weather counterparts in that country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterspout

1 hour ago, Coach McGuirk said:

Little to know damage was reported, it traversed the James River. But a super sweet pic.  Since it was associated with a large thunderstorm but never hit land, does it not count as a tornado?

I think it is counted as a “tornadic waterspout”.

 Scattered convection (moving ESE just like 3 days ago) has been occurring throughout the area since ~7:45PM. I’m away from home and so have no idea how much I got there. The cooldown from today’s 99-101 in the area has been dramatic!

Edit on 7/30: I only got 0.1” yesterday (7/29), which puts me at 4.4” MTD.

 It already hit 99.5 at 2:15PM at my place! The highest so far this season that I’ve seen here is 101.1, which was at 2:35PM on July 12th.

 Winds are from the SW, keeping the seabreeze away. Skies are mostly to partly sunny with an ugly haze.

———————

*Edit: 100.5 at 2:30PM!

Since I don’t have RH, I don’t have a heat index. However, based on surrounding stations, it’s likely ~113!

—————

*Edit: 100.9 at 2:46PM!

*Edit: 101.1 at 3:22PM, which ties with my hottest of the summer to date on July 12th!

-July’s -SOI, which is headed toward sub -25, is going to end up the strongest on record by a wide margin. The current record July -SOI is 1965’s -21.0. The next lowest are at -19.8 (1905 and 1882).

 This will at least give support to the progged record rate of warming of 3.4 within 30 days being shown by several models between the means for July and Aug of 2026.

-The avg of June and July is also headed to a record low. The current record is the -23.8 of 1905.

-The beauty of the SOI is that it apparently isn’t biased to any significant degree in any direction by CC. Thus, this measure is one of the most objective ways to measure the strength of ENSO without having to worry about GW/looking at relative vs raw.

 Going back to when I started following the CFSv2 AAM forecasts in Nov of 2023, the latest release (7/28/26 0Z) easily has THE strongest CFSv2 ensemble forecasted mean AAM of any I’ve ever seen/saved. The mean exceeds +2.5 by day 8 (Aug 5th), +3.0 by day 16 (Aug 13th), and +3.5 by day 20 (Aug 17th)! Although days 1-7 are a little shy of the strongest for week one of the forecast, all of the days day 8 to the end (day 32) are THE earliest periods in the forecast to get that strong of those that I’ve saved. Granted these have a notable +AAM bias starting ~day 15 that rises further with time as I’ve noted a number of times. But regardless, this one is very strong by day 8, which is early enough to be fairly reliable, and this run is as I said the strongest of any run that I’ve seen as a whole, which bodes well for the chance for a very strong +AAM dominating at least through the 1st 1/2 of August:

 “Typhoon Dolphin is expected to strengthen into a violent storm as it moves towards Japan's remote Minami-Torishima Island, the Japan Meteorological Agency said on Wednesday.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minamitorishima