I wrote my long annual article on summer weather forecasting a few weeks ago, but now that we are in June, let me review a few important points:
*There will be a chance of rain just about every day between now and the end of August. But, on most days, the showers and storms will be scattered, and they come during the afternoon and evening hours; mostly between 2:00 and 8:00 p.m. It is very rare to have an intrusion of dry, continental air around here in the summer. Instead, the air originates from the tropics, and with the high low level moisture content and the daytime heating process, we have “scattered afternoon thunderstorms” just about every day.
*We do not like to use “probability of precipitation” in our forecast. They are pretty much useless during the summer. The correct POP on most days is 20 or 30 percent. The simple truth is that we can’t tell you at 7:00 in the morning exactly when and where it will be raining later the same day. The best thing to do is watch radar trends as the showers and storms begin. Even that won’t really help more than half hour or so in advance.
*Instead of using those probabilities, we prefer to use descriptive terms and parameters that are more helpful. Be sure and check our forecast grid, and look for “percentage of available sunshine”, “hours of precipitation”, and “rainfall potential” for good clues about weather for the coming days.
Most major, widespread rain events here in the summer are related to tropical systems, but not always. We also suggest reading our discussion products, which goes a little beyond the numbers. Welcome to summer!
Read the long blog article on this subject here:
http://www.jamesspann.com/bmachine/wxtalk.php?id=780
*There will be a chance of rain just about every day between now and the end of August. But, on most days, the showers and storms will be scattered, and they come during the afternoon and evening hours; mostly between 2:00 and 8:00 p.m. It is very rare to have an intrusion of dry, continental air around here in the summer. Instead, the air originates from the tropics, and with the high low level moisture content and the daytime heating process, we have “scattered afternoon thunderstorms” just about every day.
*We do not like to use “probability of precipitation” in our forecast. They are pretty much useless during the summer. The correct POP on most days is 20 or 30 percent. The simple truth is that we can’t tell you at 7:00 in the morning exactly when and where it will be raining later the same day. The best thing to do is watch radar trends as the showers and storms begin. Even that won’t really help more than half hour or so in advance.
*Instead of using those probabilities, we prefer to use descriptive terms and parameters that are more helpful. Be sure and check our forecast grid, and look for “percentage of available sunshine”, “hours of precipitation”, and “rainfall potential” for good clues about weather for the coming days.
Most major, widespread rain events here in the summer are related to tropical systems, but not always. We also suggest reading our discussion products, which goes a little beyond the numbers. Welcome to summer!
Read the long blog article on this subject here:
http://www.jamesspann.com/bmachine/wxtalk.php?id=780