🌞 Sunny start to meteorological summer

Update #551

And just like that, it’s June… well, nearly. You know what that means.

The start to meteorological summer is just days away!

Thursday marks the beginning of our warmest three-month period of the year: June, July, and August.

For ease of record-keeping, climatologists consider this the start of summer. The more well-known start to the season occurs on June 21st — called astronomical summer, dealing with Earth’s orbit around the sun.

Whether you think the meteorological or astronomical definition is a better, here’s something we can all support: a stretch of sunny, warm, and dry weather ☀️

Monday: sunny and warm! 👌

Tuesday: not as warm as Monday, but still sunny.

Wednesday: a little warmer with a few more clouds than Tuesday.

Thursday: getting hotter and a bit more humid 📈

Friday: a scorcher — maybe 90 degrees 🥵

Saturday-Sunday: remaining warm and sunny 😎

Clearly, it’s a heaping scoop of high pressure!

But, too much of a “good thing” isn’t good. We’ll need the rain to prevent another drought from developing. It can happen pretty quickly during this time of the year.

June climate in the Hudson Valley

June temperatures in the Hudson Valley have trended up by around a degree over the last 80 years. The warmest June on record occurred in 2005, when it reached 90 degrees or higher nine times in Poughkeepsie. The coolest June happened back in 1958, when the average cost of a new house was $12,750. Things have changed a little bit since then 🙃

June 2023 will get off to a warm start, making it more like 2005 than 1958. Another hot spell is likely during the week of June 5th.

A trend toward cooler conditions is possible around the 8th or 9th. However, a third hot spell is possible during the second half of the month.

In terms of rainfall, the signal is for lower-than-normal totals. As I’ve outlined in previous posts, El Niño summers do have a tendency to be drier. The pattern that we’re settling into may be on repeat through the season.

If rain was to arrive during June, it’s the mid-month time frame that’s worth watching. Check out the chart below for a picture of the next 10 days 🏜️

Keep watering those plants! 🪴

Super Typhoon

In the West Pacific, home to some of the planet’s warmest seas, Super Typhoon Mawar captured the weather community this past week. At its peak, it boasted wind gusts in excess of 200 mph (!) with a minimum central pressure lower than 900 hPa — right up there with some of the very strongest recorded storms to ever swirl on Earth.

Mawar passed over Guam and there was considerable damage, but very fortunately it weakened as it moved over the island.

To visualize this meteorological spectacle, I tapped into a data feed of the Japanese satellite called Himawari. A few complicated key strokes later and here’s what I saw 🤯

Mawar will gradually weaken over the next week as it passes just offshore of the northern part of the Philippines, called Luzon.

…did you know that typhoons are the same as hurricanes? In the West Pacific Ocean, hurricanes are called typhoons — meteorologically speaking, they are one and the same!

On a more calming note, here’s a huge rainbow that appeared over my town in New Zealand this week! 🌈

Meteorological masterpiece from Mother Nature 🌈

Hope your week is as good as the weather and happy summer ✌️