NWS - Climate Prediction Center forecasts - July 2014.

[elagache]

Dear WeatherCat fans,

Back in late May, I started a thread reporting that the National Weather Service's Climate Prediction Center was forecasting a hot summer for most of the United States.  However, I forgot the saying "a picture is worth 1000 words" and simply included a description of the forecast maps.  Fast forward one month and it appears to me at least, that the forecast for June was more pessimist than actually occurred.  The temperatures in northern California seemed mostly normal, not above normal.  However, without the maps to compare against . . . . oh well!

So this month, I downloaded the images associated with the July forecasts so we can review them later this year.  First the forecasts for the month of July.

Here is the forecast map for temperatures in July:



Here is the precipitation forecast map for July:



Now here are the 90 day forecasts (roughly 3 months.)

The temperature forecast map for July, August and September:



The equivalent precipitation forecast map for July, August, and September.



All these maps come from the National Weather Service's Climate Prediction Center website:

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/

There are also 6-10 day and 8-14 day outlooks but I decided this is too short a period to keep track of.  However, you may want to keep an eye on these as well.

On August 1st, I'll post the updated maps and comment as to whether July was as predicted in northern California.  Feel free to add your observations of the climate for July compared to the forecast on this thread as well!

Cheers, Edouard 

[Blicj11]

Thanks for posting these. I keep forgetting to go to their website and look. The forecast outlook for the mountains of Northern Utah looks good so keep 'em coming.

[elagache]

Dear WeatherCat climate watchers,

The official National Weather Service July climate summary for the greater San Francisco Bay area is out:

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mtr/climate/monthly_summary/2014/0714summary.pdf

It starts with a proclamation that January-June 2014 was the warmest on record.  However, July is another story.  To quote:

Unusually warm coastal waters during the second half of July helped push average July temperatures above normal for much of the area, especially for coastal climate stations. Average July temperatures at most coastal locations were about 3 degrees above normal. Downtown San Francisco had its 9th warmest July on record. Overnight lows, in particular, were unusually warm during the second half of July. Downtown San Francisco?s average low temperature of 57.1 degrees F was the third warmest average July low temperature in 140 years.

Average July temperatures for inland areas were closer to normal, but generally a bit warmer than normal.

The warm coast temperatures were caused by the lack of deep ocean water upwelling described in this thread:

http://athena.trixology.com/index.php?topic=1338.0

As reported, temperatures away from the coast were "close to normal."  I have my doubts that the temperatures were actually slightly above normal.  At Canebas Weather station, the average July 2014 high temperature was: 81.9˚ F.  Certainly what would be expected for July in this area.

If you look at maps at the start of this thread, the highlighted regions make it clear that temperatures should be significantly above normal in our area and especially hot further inland.  That didn't happen in July at least in the San Francisco Bay Area and August is continuing the thread.  We are normal to below at the moment.

So from at least my vantage point, these climatic predictions have not panned out to date.  Is anyone else finding these predictions more accurate . .  or not?

Cheers, Edouard 

P.S. The rainfall prediction was accurate, but not because of normal atmospheric phenomena.  For a sizable fraction of July, northern California was under threat by monsoonal moisture which is quite unusual.  The conditions simply weren't conducive to moisture reaching the ground as rain.

[jhoke]

So this month, I downloaded the images associated with the July forecasts so we can review them later this year.  First the forecasts for the month of July.

Cheers, Edouard 

Hi Edouard
I've been playing around with this information, and have put together a trial page on my site: http://weather.hoke.org/weather2/index.php?p=99

I haven't yet made it 'pretty' or lots of text explanations, but this image should change each month with the updated outlook...

I am using the Leuven templates and working out the full integration with the template package when I get back from a much needed long weekend in Florida this weekend

Toes in sand... drinks in hand

-john

[elagache]

Dear John and WeatherCat fans,

Sounds interesting and certainly people will like adding this sort of information to their weather websites.

But honestly, I think it is better to try to compare those forecasts with what actually turns out to be the weather.  I have no idea how well these forecasts do in the rest of the United States, but I remember last autumn watching these climate forecasts with cautious hope because they were forecasting a normal rainfall season.  Of course what actually happened was . . . . . .

So you might ponder how much real value you are adding to your website after all!

Cheers, Edouard 

[jhoke]

Thanks Edouard - the purpose for me doing this was two fold ...
1) muck around with the templates that run the website - I may want to add other data and wanted to see how the system could be tweaked
2) I plan on modifying the script to save the previous 24mos of forecast images to provide a way to look back at historic forecasts versus the historical results... but have to start somewhere