2013 Summer Forecast
It's that time of year again, time to forecast what the summer will be like and what we can see as some possible problems.
We have a few factors that we have to look at before the summer even starts. In the winter and beginning of the spring, some very wet conditions occurred over southeastern Europe. This really made the temperatures pretty close to normal, and with all that rain and even snow, there is plenty of brush and vegetation around. The weather normally dries out over the summer in Greece, Italy and other areas. Along with that, we continue to look at the wet and cooler weather that has dominated much of northern and even western Europe. This sort of pattern typically is tough to push out, but we will see at least a bit of a change in that for the end of the summer. And finally, we have to look closely at the weather over the Atlantic Ocean and any threat for tropical systems to come into Europe. Now, we normally don't see strong winds with these, but we do have to watch for the rainfall from these systems. This is not only my thought on this, but also Jason Nicholls and Paul Pastelok as our team looked closely at the drought, the past years and other factors that come into these forecasts.
Below is an image showing the general thoughts on the weather for the summer. The warmth is one of the dominant signals we see over southeastern Europe. Another thing we will see is the strong high pressure pushing northward over central Europe later in the forecast. As you can see in the graphic below, the wet weather over northern Europe looks to continue as a trough remains over Sweden and Norway.
We made the forecast by looking at what is currently occurring and what some of the longer-range models are showing, but we also found some years that matched quite well with what we are expecting; 1951 was a very chilly year over western Europe and a very, very hot year over eastern Europe with some abnormalities of over 2 degrees C, mainly from Greece northward into Ukraine.
We do see a strong signal for some cooler weather over western Europe; however, it has been over 10 years since we saw below-normal temperatures for London, and much of western Europe is in the same boat. I could see how with it wetter than normal over northern Europe, we will see cool temperatures even into London and even Paris, but the Iberian Peninsula will likely struggle to see this below-normal weather down to there, where it may even be milder. Below is an image for the temperatures we are expecting. Notice how much of southeastern Europe will be above normal. We could see temperatures of over 2 degrees C above normal in some of these areas, and it's not a shock to see a few close to 4 degrees C above normal even. This will make for temperatures in some areas over 100 degrees for some time. Athens may be locked in the heat for much of the summer, and that warmth is likely to push into Rome and other major cities in the south. Spain and much of Portugal will likely have some mild temperatures, but we are looking at some breaks from the heat to allow for the slightly cooler temperatures to continue to come in.
Now, precipitation is likely to follow the trends we see in temperatures, but the trough, especially early in the forecast, could keep northern Germany and even into northern France wet. The worst of the heat is likely to be where the worst of the drought will be. This strong ridge over southeastern Europe will make for a very concerning pattern, especially late in the summer as we get into some of the long and hot days in August. We can hope that there will be some relief from the heat earlier, but this could cause some fires from the dry grass and vegetation that grew over the winter and spring, make the air quite unhealthy, and make for a dangerous summer with the heat. Most of the area does have plentiful air conditioning, however, with highs topping out above 100 degrees F, or 38 degrees C, for weeks and with lows not dropping, this may be very dangerous. Below is the graphic we have for precipitation for the summer.
So, to wrap up, it should be hot and dry over southeastern Europe this summer, northern Europe will be cool and wet, and most of central Europe will be stuck in the middle with pretty normal conditions.
Look global, Forecast local
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