Your long-range forecast across the US for the rest of August
From unrelenting heat in Texas to a temporary lull in the tropics, AccuWeather's Bernie Rayno and Joe Lundberg break down the long-range forecast.
Transcript
00:00Joining me right now is Accuweather long-range expert meteorologist Joe Lumberg. You know, Mr.
00:05Crystal Ball, before we get into our tape of last week, what we were talking about, we were,
00:10we did clearly see that there was going to be a hurricane in the southwest Atlantic last week at
00:16this time, you know, this time last week, Joe. Yeah, we never really thought that it was a major
00:22concern getting all the way back to the coast of the southeast Florida, the Carolinas, anything
00:26like that, but it was going to be out there and indeed that's the case and now looks like it's
00:30going to be roaring up through the Atlantic. Unfortunately, Bermuda is in its crosshairs
00:34here in the next couple of days. All right, let's take a look at what we were also talking about
00:39last week. More disturbances come down from the Dakotas, work their way southeastward toward the
00:46Ohio Valley. Probably not a lot of the way of severe weather, but some showers and a couple
00:50of thunderstorms and northeast of that, you're going to have some comfortable weather to dry
00:53out after all this rain this week. Yeah, all this rain, all this rain last week, Joe, what,
01:00what a wet weekend we had. Let's get into what we're looking at though for the upcoming week.
01:07Yeah, I was just taking a look at the latest U.S. drought monitor, Bernie, and it's wiped out most
01:11of the drought in Pennsylvania. Certainly the areas that were exceptional, they're gone because
01:15of all the rain from Debbie. As we look to next week, there's no summer heat to contend with from
01:20the Great Lakes to the northeast. Unfortunately in Texas, it's not going to get comfortable. It's
01:26going to get hotter in the days ahead. The tropics will turn temporarily tranquil, but here's the key
01:30word there, temporarily, because it's still only the middle of August. We get to September and
01:35things are likely to change and change in a big way. You know, one of the reasons, Joe, we haven't
01:40seen a lot of heat in the northeast besides the fact that the pattern hasn't dictated it. You
01:45could see how wet it's been well up and down the eastern seaboard. Now, a lot of that rainfall
01:51for the last 30 days is actually what Debbie did. Yeah, you look at this, I mean, especially from the
01:56Carolinas all the way up through portions of, I would say, you know, really all the way into
02:02upstate New York. There were places here with a foot of rain or at least four to eight inches of
02:06rain that caused quite a bit of flash flooding. Areas west of the Appalachians missed out on that.
02:11Now, this is misleading in here. Now, this is what, last 30 days, this was probably mostly in
02:17the front edge of that, but since then it has turned hot and dry in Texas, and that's going
02:20to be a part of your forecast going forward for the foreseeable future. Why? Well, there it is.
02:25Big upper level ridge of high pressure centered over Colorado and New Mexico, and that's going
02:29to keep the heat dome in place day after day after day of triple digit heat. Keep an eye on this
02:35little feature here in the Pacific Northwest. That means some showers in these areas going
02:38into the weekend and cooler than average weather. However, there may be some gusty winds in here
02:42that could kick up forest fires or spread some fires and maybe some smoke and spread it downstream,
02:47but on the east side of that jet stream, more comfortable weather for a good bit of next week
02:51for the Great Lakes, the Midwest, the Ohio Valley, and the Northeast. And Joe, that's part of the
02:56reasoning why we think the tropics will be quiet, at least for the east coast, because those dips
03:00in the jet stream keep storms well to the east. The question is, Joe, as we go through the rest
03:06of August, is this pattern going to hold? That is, these big dips in the jet stream in the eastern
03:12third of the U.S.? No, we kind of think the pattern flattens out as we go into the month of September,
03:17and that's going to mean more of this heat that gets up into these areas late in the month tries
03:21to work its way eastward. However, as the pattern flattens, it opens up the door to the Atlantic,
03:25and I was talking with our long-range tropical expert earlier, and we were just looking ahead
03:29at the month of September, and we kind of think that there's going to be seven to maybe as many
03:33as ten named storms in the month of September alone, so keep an eye on the tropics. Seven to
03:37ten named storms in the month of September. AccuWeather Early continues.