Good Wednesday, everyone. We have a much more normal late August pattern taking shape across the Commonwealth for the next few days. This will soon give way to a more active setup as we watch the tropics start to come to life.

I’m also going to take a look at the current state of the Pacific Ocean and see if we can find some parallels to similar years.

Let’s begin with today and roll forward. Highs are well into the 80s for many with a mix of sun and clouds. There’s a touch more humidity back into the picture to make it feel rather August-like here in… August.

Temps climb a little more for Thursday and Friday as we watch the threat for a few showers and storms to go up. The greatest risk comes Friday as a system approaches from the northwest…

The as we close out August and roll into September will feature an increase in showers and storms as another trough digs into the east…

EURO

CANADIAN

How exactly that plays out remains to be seen, but the tropics will likely have something to say about the overall pattern. Things continue to come to life right now…

We are at the time of year I really start to buckle down to get a general idea of the fall and winter ahead. One of the first things I look at is the state of the Pacific Ocean, in particular the tropical Pacific. Water temperature anomalies often play a big role in shaping the overall theme of the cold weather season across North America.

We are currently in a rare third year La Nina. This is where the water temps along the equatorial Pacific are averaging below normal. At the same time, waters in the farther northward in the Pacific and into the Gulf of Alaska are much above normal…

So how does that compare to last year at the same time? You can see the notable differences…

The current La Nina is much stronger compared to last year and the waters north of that are much warmer this year than last.

2020 was the start of this current La Nina and is actually a better match to this year…

The absolute best match to the current La Nina is from 2010…

That’s a really good match to what we have now, but the waters off the west coast into the Gulf of Alaska are not a good match.

The winter of 2010/11 was historic across the region, especially in December with serious snow and cold. That continued into January.

The last few winters had some similarities, but some stark differences. Last winter featured the warmest December on record for many with the historic tornado outbreak right in the middle of it. That was followed up by historic snows for parts of central and eastern Kentucky in January.

The winter of 2020/21 was historic on a number of fronts. We had a massive Christmas snowstorm across central and eastern Kentucky with frequent light snows in January and unprecedented back to back to back ice/snow storms in February. That was capped off by one of the worst floods on record at the end of February into early March.

Notice a trend? All of the above had extreme periods of winter weather or just extreme weather in general.

We will soon find out if the winter of 2022/23 holds more of the same. I suspect it will.

Have a great day and take care.