It has been one of the quietest starts to the hurricane season in years. While most years have at least one named Atlantic storm in July, there have been none yet this year. The last time it took this long to get a named storm was 1992, when Hurricane Andrew hit Florida. The lack of storms is being blamed on El Nino conditions this year, which tend to produce conditions in the Atlantic that don’t favor tropical development.

We still don’t have a named storm, but are likely to get one by this time tomorrow. The National Hurricane Center has identified Tropical Depression Two forming from a wave off the African coast. The depression, which will become tropical storm Ana if it intensifies, is too far east to know where or if it will impact the US coastline.

As a followup to my earlier post on July temperatures, the NCDC released its official temperature rankings for July, and it looks like a lot of records were broken.

It was the coldest July in 115 years of recordkeeping on Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, with Wisconsin, Missouri, Michigan and Kentucky having their second coldest July ever. In Georgia, it was the 15 coolest July on record.

The 90 degree temperatures we’ve seen for the last week or so have kept August about 1.5 degrees above normal so far. Today will likely be the last day we see 90 for the rest of the week, as an approaching frontal system and the attendant clouds and storms will keep temperatures down. Today is the last of the Dog Days, traditionally the hottest period of the summer, from July 3rd through August 11th. And today’s ‘normal’ low dropped by a degree from yesterday, from 71 to 70. By the end of the month, the daily average temperature will have dropped by three degrees from today’s 80.

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Extremely unusual weather for mid-July has broken low temperature records around the state, with much of Georgia seeing late September like weather during what is normally the warmest stretch of the year.

On Sunday, Atlanta tied a record low of 63 degrees, set in 1967. The low in Athens of 58 beat the prior record of 62 set in 1925. In Columbus, it was 62 degrees Sunday morning, breaking the previous low of 66, set in 1987. And in Macon, a low of 58 beat the old record of 61, set in 1967.

Monday morning’s low of 61 in Atlanta tied the previous record, set in 1946. In Athens, a low of 60 degrees broke the almost 100 year low record of 61, set in 1910. In Columbus, a low of 64 also tied the previous record, set in 1946. And in Macon, a low of 61 beat the previous low of 62, set in 1987.

There’s another chance for record lows tomorrow morning before the weather starts returning to normal during the latter part of the week. A stationary front located near the Georgia-Florida border is keeping the normal summertime humidity from the Gulf coast from moving north, and the exceptionally dry air is letting daytime heat escape into the clear night skies.

The normal high for July 20th is 88 degrees, and the normal low is 70.

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If it seems pretty warm out there, you’re right. Today’s high temperature of 95.1 in Lawrenceville at 2:20 PM makes it the warmest day of 2009 so far. Of course, the 93-95 degree high temperatures we’ve had for the last two weeks are 5-8 degrees above normal. In Atlanta, it’s been over ten days since the low temperature dropped below 70 degrees, another sign of a heat wave. For the month to date, Atlanta is 2.9 degrees above normal, with an average temperature of 79.5. In Lawrenceville, where nighttime temperatures don’t have the same heat island effect as Atlanta, the average is 77.4 degrees.

All of this isn’t being helped by the lack of rainfall — none here in the last two weeks. Now I know that it has rained in places around Atlanta — just not here. Rain chances increase from this afternoon to tomorrow evening, but after a cold front passes through Sunday night, it’s back to warmer than normal temperatures and dry weather for the work week.

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The August heat wave looks like it will go on through Thursday, but at least here at my house, today was the warmest day so far in 2008. It got up to 99 degrees (well, 98.7) at 2:10 PM, topping the 97.1 reached on both June 8 and July 10. It could have been worse though: with the dew point in the low 60s, the heat index was only 102 degrees.

Temperatures reached the century mark today in Augusta, Milledgeville, Savannah, Athens and Vidalia. For whatever reason, it stayed a bit cooler in Atlanta today, with highs only in the low 90s. Tomorrow, the humidity goes back up, and by tomorrow afternoon, the approaching front will bring a chance of rainfall, and at least a temporary end to the excessive heat we’ve been seeing recently.

Hurricane Forecast Update

We’re about ready to get into the strongest part of the hurricane season, from mid-August through the end of October.  The folks at Colorado State University have updated their tropical forecast and are now calling for more storms than they predicted back in April and repeated in June.

Instead of 15 named storms, the predicted total has been upped to 17, with nine hurricanes, instead of eight. Five of those should be intense, compared to four predicted previously.  Part of the reason for upping the predictions is the number of storms we’ve seen through July, with four named storms, two hurricanes and one intense hurricane. That doesn’t count Edouard, which was the first storm in August.  According to the forecast, only 2005 (the year of Katrina) and 1916 have had more active pre-August tropical activity.

There’s a 2/3 chance of a major hurricane making landfall somewhere in the US during the rest of the season, with a better than 40% chance of a storm striking either the east coast or the gulf coast.  Overall, the forecasters are predicting a tropical season that is 190% as active than the average season from 1950-2000.

In addition to providing forecasts for the rest of the season, the Dr. Gray and his team are providing a forecast for August tropical activity. If they are right, we will have four storms, three of which will become hurricanes, and one intense hurricane this month. With Edouard already occuring, that’s the non-hurricane storm, if their forecast is correct. They will also issue forecasts for September and October at the beginning of those months.

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The June heat wave continued to set records today throughout the east coast. Here are some of the new records:

Atlanta: 98 degrees, with the old record of 97 set in 1995. In addition, this morning’s low temperature of 76 was warmer than the previous high minimum temperature for June 9th of 75 degrees.
Athens: 102 degrees, besting the previous record of 99, set in 1926.
Columbus: 97 ties the record set back in 1986
Macon: 100 ties the previous record from 1954.

Other locations in Georgia, including Augusta, Gainesville, Albany and Savannah also saw highs in the upper 90s, but failed to break any records. Here at my unofficial weather station, I recorded 97 degrees around 2:30 PM. Additional records from around the eastern seaboard:

Raleigh, North Carolina – 99 degrees breaks previous record of 98 set in 1999
Richmond, Virginia – Tied record high of 98 set in 1999.
Atlantic City NJ – 98 degrees beats previous record of 96 set in 1984
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – Tied record high of 95 set in 1999
Hartford, Connecticut – Tied record high of 96 set in 1984
Providence, Rhode Island – 97 degrees tops previous record 95 set in 1984
New York LaGuardia Airport high temperature of 99 tops previous record of 95 from 1984
Newark, New Jersey ties old record of 99 set in 1933

(more…)

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