Sunday September 20th… Dear Diary. The main purpose of this ongoing blog 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).😉
Main Topic: A New Western Heatwave Designated as Desdemona
Dear Diary. Due to a weakened but more amplified, undulating jet stream heat waves have been popping up much more frequently around the planet, as we have described since this site came on line in 2017. The most common area for heatwaves in North America since then has been the U.S. West. Due to a developing common dipole with the jet, it has been shown that the West has been warming faster than the rest of the United States.
Unfortunately last night meteorological models came in line forecasting yet another heatwave for the West this year:
A week out nothing in meteorology is set in stone, so plenty of things can change to lessen this coming heat episode, but the European model, our best state of the art guidance, has become persistent, forecasting a strong ridge in the West:
Now we will look for exactly where the axis of the ridge sets up and how strong the thing will be. Also, we will be looking for any dynamics which might produce easterly flow winds in California, which would definitely exacerbate the potential for fires, and expand conflagrations that are not under control by next weekend.
Let’s designate this heat episode as “Desdemona,” for a tragic Shakespearean character from his play, Othello. Indeed, if what I’m seeing cones close to verifying, we will continue seeing a tragedy play out in the West with a new episode of record heat interacting with a smoldering landscape to spread and produce more conflagrations. I’ll have more updates in Desdemona as this week progresses.
PM update: There has not been much change to model guidance. Desdemona should begin Saturday and intensify on Sunday:
On the flip side the jet pattern will probably get so amplified that a cold trough in the East will produce near record cold conditions in the Midwest, Northeast, and South.
More on this western fiery nightmare:
While it has been hot in the West it has gotten chilly in the East with the first cold outbreak of the fall season occurring in the Northeast. Here are some chilly “ET’s” for a change from this weekend:
Here are notes on a very active tropics:
Here is more climate and weather news from Sunday:
(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article. The most noteworthy items will be listed first.)
Now here are some of today’s articles and notes on the horrid COVID-19 pandemic:
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Guy Walton “The Climate Guy”