Extreme Temperature Diary- July 16, 2018/ Hot Topic: Another Historic Western Heatwave?

guyonclimate_mi5tor

Monday July 16th… Dear Diary. The main purpose of this ongoing post will be to track United States extreme or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials)😊. Here is today’s main climate change post related hot topic:

Another Historic Western Heatwave?

A couple of days ago I tweeted out this statement indicating that another eye popping heat dome or ridge was in the offing for the Southwest:

Extremely impressive heat dome will max out in the West next weekend leading to potential all-time records. Keep reading posts on for updates.

4:29 PM – 14 Jul 2018
I have a little good news here. Thankfully I may have jinxed the worst possible extent of the dome considering that the GFS was forecasting a ridge at maximum well above 600 decameters. (If only I really had the power to do this.😉)  In fact, the ridge may fail to exceed 600 decameters on Sunday and be centered closer to Texas looking at the more reliable European Model:
And now to the bad news. As opposed to the Southern California heatwave that lasted for only one weekend during the first few days of July it appears that this coming heatwave will cover a much larger area stretching from Texas and the southern Plains westward through the bulk of the West. Also, this heat episode probably won’t max out on Sunday but be in building stages lasting through much of the last week of July. Here is what we see from last night’s EURO run at 240 hours out valid for a week from Wednesday:

It remains to be seen if model temperature guidance will suggest that many all-time are in the offing in association with this heat dome. I’ll post some data from the 12Z model run later on this post that might give us clues. For now, here is the heat dome forecast at 18Z Sunday by the GFS, the same time frame as my initial tweet:

The trough/ridge configuration across the CONUS is about the same as that of the 18Z Saturday run, but 500 millibar heights are much lower.

 

Will this heat wave eventually rival that of the Southern California heat wave? Keep reading my posts for updates.

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Even before the start of any major heat wave tomorrow will be hotter across much of the Southwest into Texas:

A front will produce slightly cooler conditions for the Eastern Seaboard.

Incredible footage of what appears to be a fire-induced (!) yesterday on Colorado River near , CA. This is beyond a mere “fire whirl;” appears to be connected to larger rotating convective smoke column. Wow!

A deadly wildfire burning near Yosemite National Park grew to 9,266 acres overnight with only 2% of the blaze contained

10:30 AM – 16 Jul 2018
Be sure to listen to Dr, Daniel Swain’s interview in association with heat waves:

If you missed the discussion of California climate in context of recent heat extremes, here’s a link to recorded conversation with Noah Diffenbaugh (), Marty Hoerling (), and (/):

4:09 PM – 16 Jul 2018

June 2018 was was tied for the third warmest June in 138 years of modern record-keeping at +0.77°C above the 1951-1980 baseline average. Only June 2015 and 2016 (+0.80°C and +0.79°C) were warmer.

8:14 AM – 16 Jul 2018
Here is another interesting Weather Underground post on climate change and cloud patterns. This time the culprit is methane: https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/Methane-Giving-Noctilucent-Clouds-Boost
Here are Monday’s national maxes:

Maxes were slightly above average across most of the United States except in portions of the southern Rockies due to monsoon moisture.

It’s still warm in Canada:

Record heat in today, with up to 34.9°C in Happy Valley—Goose Bay (hottest day since July 2002)!

5:20 PM – 16 Jul 2018

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The Climate Guy

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