Record warmth in the west and India starts its heat season

Good morning! As we discussed yesterday, it will take a while to tally up the meteorological, hydrologic, and societal impacts of the last week of weather, and I will continue to share updates as we learn more. This BlueSky post from NCEI colleague Jared Rennie is an excellent perspective on the magnitude of the rainfall aspect of the last week.

Having a 1 in 1,000 year flood event in any given location is inherently a rare event, so to have the areal extent of this level of rainfall with over 1,800 square miles is impressive to say the least.

While the river flooding will continue for days, luckily the region will have an extended opportunity to dry out with quiet weather anticipated for the foreseeable future. The national weather map for today is about as quiet as one could hope for as we approach the middle of April. Some winter weather type impacts will be seen though. Heavy snow is anticipated in Maine and northern New England and some wintry precipitation is expected in the higher elevations of the Northwest.

Freeze warnings are also in effect for parts of the Mid-Atlantic and Tennessee and Ohio Valleys as late season cold air has moved into the eastern US after a prolonged period of above normal warmth.

The overall weather pattern this week of a large upper level ridge of high pressure aloft over the western United States and corresponding downstream trough of low pressure in the eastern United States will support colder than normal weather in the East and building heat in the West.

The heat in the West will be at or near record levels in many locations for the later part of the week, with triple digit readings common in desert locations of Arizona and southern California.

As we set up for some record heat in the US later in the week, it’s a good time to look at temperatures over the rest of the planet by looking at this morning’s global surface temperature anomaly map. While a few locations in addition to the eastern US are experiencing colder than normal temperatures – eastern Europe, Alaska, parts of Antarctica – warmth is as usual more prevalent.

Of most obvious interest is the large area of extreme warmth from the Middle East across nearly all of Asia. Hundreds of records for both highest maximums and highest minimums are being set all across this region.

(Note: 46.5C is 116F. Follow Extreme Temperatures Around The World on BlueSky here)

As noted in this Extreme Temperatures Around the World BlueSky post, the extreme heat includes parts of India and Pakistan. Late April into June is typically the hottest time of year in these countries as the monsoon season of late summer tempers the most intense heat. In recent years, though, the heat has been starting earlier and earlier in this region, resulting in longer periods of impacts. The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) warned yesterday (article here) about this trend and the anticipated heat this week, and also noted their expectations for above normal temperatures to be prevalent the next few months. India had a brutally hot season last year, including setting the national record high temperature, 50.5C (123F) in Rajasthan state.

Coming back stateside, the long range weather pattern into next week continues to look relatively warm and quiet overall. Given the last month or two of weather, I don’t think many people will complain about that.