Summertime Blues

Remember this one???

“Sometimes I wonder what I’m a gonna do
but there ain’t no cure for the Summertime Blues.”

Summer poses a special challenge for meteorologists that work here in the Deep South. Quite frankly, we do a lousy job of handling the small scale features that bring subtle weather changes on a day to day basis.

WHAT WE KNOW: The weather will be hot and humid just about every day June through August. And, it will rain during the afternoon on a daily basis.

WHAT WE DON’T KNOW: There is no way of knowing at 7:00 a.m. where the showers and storms will form on a summer afternoon at 3:00 p.m. in most cases. There is no real skill in forecasting placement and coverage of airmass thunderstorms that form on just about every summer afternoon in Alabama, and that can frustrate the pants off the best forecasters.

POP HATER: POP in this case means “probability of precipitation”. The NWS uses POPs, and quite frankly we started using them last year in the seven day forecast that shows up on ABC 33/40 News. We did that in response to public demand; we are not here to produce products that make us happy, but products that match our viewers needs. But, let me clearly me say I do not like POP in a public forecast.

For example, on most summer days, you will hear this kind of forecast: “Partly sunny, hot, and humid with scattered, mostly afternoon and evening showers and thunderstorms. Probability of precipitation is 30 percent”.

Now, let’s review that. I have learned that most people, and many weather forecasters don’t know the true definition of POP. I honestly don’t know the right answer myself. So, how in the world can people use that information if they don’t understand it.

BOTTOM LINE: On most summer days, there is actually about an 80 to 90 percent chance that showers and storms will form during the peak of the daytime heating process. BUT, the chance of any one neighborhood getting wet at any given time is only 30 percent, and that is why you see it in the forecast.

THE PROBLEM: To any one person at any one point, it is either raining, or it is not raining. So, in their eyes, to be correct the POP in a forecast really needs to be zero, or 100. If the forecast is perfect, and we have scattered showers and storms around, the person under one of those scattered storms thinks we are fools because we say there is only a “30 percent chance of rain” when it is pouring as they drive down the road. This is when they say “I am using my windshield wipers to get that 30 percent off my windshield”. They have no idea it isn’t raining in most other places. POPs only get forecasters in trouble.

SO… Just understand the weather just doesn’t change much on a daily basis June through August. It will be hot and humid, and it will rain somewhere just about every afternoon. Just understand we don’t know when and where, and nobody can tell you until they begin to show up on radar during the early afternoon hours.

CAN’T REMEMBER IT BEING THIS HOT? Almost every year, I hear from people that tell me “I can never remember the weather being this strange”. And, understand I have been doing this for 32 years. The truth is that our weather is “strange” every year. Averages are just that; averages.

For those of you that say you can’t remember it being this hot in June during your lifetime, I say you have a short memory. The decades of the 30s and 50s were brutally hot in Alabama; our hottest June temperature on record is 106 degrees, set on June 29, 1931 (based on data for Birmingham). Our hottest temperature on record is 107, set on July 29, 1930.

Don’t forget, we are coming off a few very mild summers, so we were due for one. Alabama is a low latitude state that is stuck in mT air (maritime tropical), with lots of sunshine and winds aloft that are light and variable as the mid-latitude westerlies hang around well to the north of here. It is supposed to be hot around here. Always has, and always will.

ONE THING can break up the monotonous summer weather, and that is a tropical storm or hurricane. The big ones usually come in August and September, and it does indeed seem that all parameters are in place this season for a bunch of them. Even a tropical depression can be quite a heat buster with flooding potential. So, look to the south for big changes, and not to the north. Alabama is a cold front graveyard this time of the year; while you can get an intrusion of dry, continental air in summer, is just doesn’t happen very often.

THINGS TO WATCH: I recommend you pay attention to the various parameters on our seven day forecast during the long, hot, summer. Sure, the words won’t change much. You know… “hot and humid with scattered afternoon and evening showers and storms”. But watch for the parameters like “percentage of available sunshine”, “hours of rain”, and “rainfall potential”. That will give you a clue concerning our thinking about afternoon storm coverage and placement.

So… as I wait for October and my favorite season (I have been a fall fan boy for many years), let’s just do the best we can to enjoy summer. Sure, it is too hot and humid, but think back to your childhood and those long summer days. It can be a fun time of the year, even for a meteorologist in Alabama.

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