Back in November, I put forth an outlook for the upcoming Winter, which indicated a mild start and below normal snow for the early part of the season, then more snow, especially in February, but still falling just shy of or barely making the seasonal average in most of the region. Well, the forecast started out ok, but I need not remind you what happened beginning on January 24…

Regardless of success or failure of forecasting, especially in the longer range, we forge onward and try it again and again. It’s just the nature of the science to want to try to get it right, but knowing that failure is going to be a part of the effort. The aim in this is to learn something from each failure and apply it going forward.

So now it’s time to go forward and look ahead at the upcoming Summer of 2015. This will be my fairly non-technical outlook for the months of June, July, and August, otherwise known as “Meteorological Summer”. My intention is to add outlooks for Autumn and Spring as well.

Leading up to Summer…
We’ve seen the pattern transition recently into one that has feature more upper level ridging in the eastern US, allowing above normal temperatures to be more dominant during the month of May. There have been interruptions, especially from the notorious “back-door” cold fronts which introduce cool marine air into at least coastal and eastern portions of New England, and sometimes penetrate much further inland. We’ve also had a couple shots of cool air from Canada, with one such just having visited at the end of last week. During all of this we have been running drier to much drier than average, with up to 5-inch rainfall deficits in southeastern New England and higher fire danger. Only a subtle shift in the overall pattern during the next week may allow for some increase in shower activity, but I’m not seeing a shift to an overall wet pattern as far out as I can see. The main player in this current pattern is El Nino, which is becoming more established after a long wait for it to finally arrive.

June…
The pattern of May continues through mid month with warmer than normal days winning out over cooler than normal ones by about 2 to 1, with interruptions in warmth coming again in the form of a few back-door cold fronts from the Gulf of Maine and a few genuine polar fronts from Canada. Later June is likely to be the warmest, relative to normal, as a high pressure ridge pokes into the Great Lakes and brings frequent warm to hot west to northwest winds. We will have to watch for a couple episodes of northwest flow disturbances which can bring thunderstorms, sometimes strong to severe, in this type of pattern. Despite several shower and storm threats, rainfall is likely to continue below normal.

July…
The warm to hot and mainly dry pattern of late June will persist into early July. After this, the mid Summer version of the pattern of May and the first part of June will likely return, with more variability, but still overall drier than normal conditions and near to slightly above normal temperatures.

August…
A weak mean trough is likely to replace the ridge in the Midwest and Great Lakes while high pressure is a little stronger off the East Coast. For this area we will likely see some transitions between warm to hot and humid weather from the offshore high, and cooler/drier interludes from fronts sent eastward and southeastward from southern Canada and the upper Midwest. Despite these changes, I still feel that the drier than normal trend will be the rule. As always, however, we need to keep an eye on the tropics at this time in the season…

Hurricane Season…
Did somebody mention the tropics? It’s pretty simple this time. El Nino tropical seasons most often result in fewer than average storms. But that doesn’t mean anybody is immune to being impacted by one or more during the season. We’ll have to keep our eyes open, because despite the fact that the season will likely be quieter than normal, the weather pattern will find itself able to deliver storms toward the East Coast, should they occur at just the right time. So we should not let our guard down despite it being an El Nino year. There is also always the chance that the El Nino conditions which tend to limit Atlantic activity could weaken sooner than expected and that could allow for more storm development. This is something to monitor and update as the season gets going.

“Why did you ignore September? It’s still Summer!” I know I know. Fine. September will probably be quite warm, at least to start, with an established drought very possibly ongoing. Will a renegade tropical system help alleviate dryness? Time will tell.