Today was our 20th straight day at or above 90 degrees. Most of those days were at least in the mid 90s with little or no rainfall. The exception was a good Sat. rainfall on the 11th but was confined to Southeast Ga. & the Lake City area. There are many places in Northeast Florida -- especially south of I-10 -- that have not had a soaking rain since the last week or 10 days of July. Aug. & Sept. are climatologically our wettest -- avg. 14.74" of rain. I've had less than an inch at my house since Aug. 1. And word comes today that 70 Georgia counties are in "exceptional" drought -- the worst in 100 years for the Peach State.
The massive upper level high pressure area that's been parked over the South & Southeast U.S. has been a case of the good, the bad & the ugly:
Good: Steered "Dean" well south of the U.S. (by the way, the remnant circulation is moving back out into the E. Pacific southeast of the Baja & might try to slowly redevelop. If it does, it'll get the name "Gil" because the Pacific list is different than the Atlantic + the storm did not remain a named system as it crossed Mexico).
Bad: Persistent & widespread drought across the Southeast one-third to one-half of the U.S. + record breaking heat from Mississippi & Alabama to Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky to Indiana, Ohio & as far northeast as Pennsylvania & New York.
Ugly: The southwest flow on the "backside" of the high has funneled moisture northeast into the Central U.S. & Northern Ohio Valley & parts of upper New England + fronts have stalled once they hit the ridge so the result has been round-after-round of heavy rain producing major -- & in some cases historic -- flooding. The high pressure aloft is supported by high pressure at the surface too over Alabama. See the map below from NOAA & imagine a large clockwise circulation "steering" our weather systems -- both at the surface & aloft.
An afternoon & evening of nearly continuous thunderstorms, is causing headaches at O'Hare in Chicago. Delays have been running between 1 & 2 hours, & it'll probably take a while to get things running smoothly again so delays & cancellations might linger into early Fri. Of course, with problems at such a major hub there will likely be a "ripple effect" for much of especially the Eastern half of the nation.
Google Earth now has Google Sky -- fantastic pictures & "fly throughs" of our solar system, the stars, planets, etc. Get info. my clicking here.
