Below is your latest July forecast update! Have a blessed day! -Bret
Temperatures:
Only very minor adjustments to the July forecast on today’s update. Overall, the end of June is progressing similarly to how we think the July pattern sets up, which gives us above normal confidence in our current July temperature forecast.
The continued standing wave in the tropics near Africa and in the W. Indian Ocean combined with the –AAM state tend to favor the core of the warmth in the Rockies and in the Western Plains and we’ve tried to represent this in our outlook.
We do favor gulf flow into the Deep South – and perhaps the risk of more tropical systems – which will help keep those areas cooler and lead to a touch lower CDDs. However, we did warm Texas due to recent dry conditions, so we bumped CDDs up a few points.
One thing to note for July, with fluctuations once again showing up on the SOI, it is going to be hard to get persistent heat to setup especially in the Eastern US where cooler air can develop behind storm systems at times. We may have 6-10 day period of warmth/heat especially in the Plains/Rockies, but then have a cold front move through.
Precipitation:
Precipitation has a little bit lower confidence given the SOI fluctuations. This can lead to more storm dates, but we are also dealing with expanding drought conditions in the Western US and W. Plains including Texas. Conditions are also drying in parts of the Ohio Valley.
The AAM/MJO analogs favor a jet shoved north which can lead to dry period, but with the SOI drops, we could see timely rains that help especially parts of Iowa, Minnesota and Missouri.
For now we are keeping the Ohio Valley closer to normal due to some return flow risks from the Gulf and Northwest flow risks at times, but if there is a drier risk to our forecast it is in this area.
If there’s a wetter risk, it’s likely in the Northern Plains to upper-Midwest with fronts related to the SOI movement. With that being said, we are generally favoring a similar idea to what our seasonal and sub-seasonal analogs have been suggesting for months.