A look ahead at the 2024 fall forecast
AccuWeather Lead Long-range Expert Paul Pastelok breaks down what he forecasts to be a warmer-than-usual fall season this year. Additionally, he analyzes the risks of severe weather and wildfires.
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00:00Joining us to discuss what you need to know is this fall is lead long range expert meteorologist
00:06Paul Pasteluk. Paul, thanks for being with us and thanks for all your hard work putting this
00:09together. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, it's been an interesting summer, very warm summer so far.
00:16That probably is going to extend into the fall season. I do believe that we're going to have a
00:21pretty warm start across the nation. Come on, Paul. You know, fall is all about the sweaters,
00:27the pumpkin spice lattes, football. Everyone wants that fall chill, but you're kind of
00:31hinting to most of the country being warmer than the historical average. Yeah, you get a little
00:35older. You like to see some of those football games in the warm weather early on before the
00:38snow hits. So yeah, it does look like it's going to be overall a mild start to the fall season.
00:44September and October right now looking pretty warm and really not much changed from what you're
00:49seeing now. I mean, where the warmest air is is over the Rockies with this big area of high
00:54pressure that's been dominant for the second half of this summer season. And a lot of that will
00:59start to expand that heat possibly toward the Great Lakes in the interior northeast as well.
01:04So places like Detroit, Chicago and Buffalo, you still got some heat surges coming your way. A
01:10little cool down in the northwest and the southeast. The wetness is probably going to
01:13hold you down. But still overall, the start of fall looking pretty warm and humid down there as
01:17well. All right. When it comes to fall, everyone wants to know, are we going to get snow early?
01:21We're going to talk about the precipitation across the country. First, let's start
01:25with the rain. What we can expect. Yeah, we have drought conditions going on across the interior
01:29southwest. I think that's going to continue to expand northward as we get into the rest of the
01:34summer season, early fall season, probably getting into parts of Montana and Dakota is getting worse
01:39there. But there can be some precipitation that starts to arrive maybe as early as late August,
01:44but I think into September and October across the interior west. And that is good news for the big
01:49fires that are burning out in the west right now. The east coast, you're going to have to deal with
01:53some stall, cool fronts and maybe some tropical moisture that's going to keep you above average
01:58on the rainfall there. All right. The next map may be sad for some people because there's not
02:02a whole lot of blue that pops up on it. What can we expect when it comes to snow this fall? Yeah,
02:07I think as you look at the east, it's going to be kind of a slow start. Generally, you start to
02:11pick up some snow in October and the higher elevations across the interior northeast,
02:15maybe a couple of weeks behind on the significant snow can't rule out a couple of flurries then.
02:19But I think November is the month farther west, though, probably on a normal pace. The Sierras,
02:24the Cascades and the bitter roots. I think you're on target for a normal start time to
02:30your snowfall in the higher elevations as systems start to increase and pick up frequency there.
02:35Paul, most people know that spring is severe weather season, but there is a secondary peak
02:39in fall. And we're talking about the potential for more tornadoes. Yeah, it's been a very busy
02:43year this year. In fact, kind of related to the 2011 season where we saw several tornadoes that
02:49year, kind of an analog year, a year that we match up pretty well when we look at our seasonal
02:53forecast. And that year is on our target. Look for activity in the Tornado Alley area, Mississippi
02:59Valley early on as systems come out of the west, picking up a little bit in November across the
03:04lower Mississippi Valley and still can't rule out a few severe weather events here and there
03:08across the Ohio Valley to the east coast. And don't forget about the tropical systems. We saw
03:13Barrow bring a lot of tornadoes so far in the recent past year, and we could see that kind
03:19of activity replay again with any tropical activity. Yeah, excellent point there. Let's wrap
03:25things up with the wildfires because we've been seeing wildfires grow in the west. And what kind
03:28of wildfire activity can we expect as we head into the fall season? Well, the big news has been the
03:33Park wildfire that's in northern California. Over 400,000 acres burned at the present time,
03:40and the fires continue to rage in eastern Oregon and Washington as well. This is the
03:45peak season for them, okay? This is going to stay with us here for the rest of the summer season
03:49into August, and then we'll start to see a little bit more action, some precipitation coming in,
03:54and things should start to quickly die off in the northwest. Southern California, we're still
03:58watching mid-fall. But watch out, again, if it starts to dry out in the Great Lakes and northeast,
04:03little concern for a late surge of some fires across that area. The dry conditions could come
04:08in during the early to mid-autumn time period. And you can see the totals that we have here.
04:14We've actually upped these numbers just recently. This is the latest that you're seeing right now.
04:18Six to eight million we're forecasting for the U.S. to burn as far as acreage. And California,
04:24we've taken that up as well due to the fact of the park forest that's really increased the acreage
04:30right now. So very busy season, especially compared to last year. But it could quickly
04:35die off in the northwest, which is good news. We still got to watch southern California this year
04:40and also the northeast.