My spring semester was quite undulating, and robust. I am currently going through my blog, updating the profile, and the view of the blog in general. I have quite the collection of photographs to post, among other meteorology related articles. Along with that, I will make a portion of my research involving the climatology of record temperatures, available to the public. This will give a little insight as to what I had been working on during my senior year of college, and what I will continue to strive for in the future.
The weather around the nation has been quite interesting this spring, and summer. Thus far, northern Illinois has been stuck in a rather stagnant pattern; one which yields very little rain. Given the lack of appreciable rain (last was the > 1.00" rain event on 31 May, 2012), we remain well below normal rainfall amounts for the past couple months, and for 2012 thus far. Given the early planting season, in part thanks to the unusually warm March, certain crops such as Corn are rapidly approaching their most important growth stage. This is known as the V5 stage, or the fifth leaf. Precipitation becomes very important during this period, and previous research of mine has shown that dry weather during this period leads to poor corn yields during the fall. Given this knowledge, I think it is safe to say that our yields across the corn-belt region will suffer. And, this dry-spell does not look to end for at least a week. Current guidance keeps northern Illinois dry for much of the week, and possibly warmer towards the end of the week.
Of late, the dominant feature has been upper level ridging over much of the eastern United States. Although this feature breaks down from time to time (see today's shortwave in Ontario and associated sfc-low), most often the great synoptic forcing is displaced further north. Today was a prime example: there was an approaching cold front, which was associated with the sfc-low in Ontario. Best upper level winds and associated PVA were located north of the Canada/United States border, leaving the Midwest with poor upper level support, and weak forcing. The pre-frontal trof, and some PVA was enough to create some mid-morning cloud-cover, but never amounted to any rain, as radar returns diminished early this morning thanks to little instability. Another area of PVA was supposed to rotate through the base of the shortwave in association with the approaching cold front, but weak forcing proved to be too much to overcome in its case.
The current split flow pattern is common with an El Nino, which is the pattern that we transitioned into after being in the strong La Nina for much of the winter. Typically, this yields more active southerly jet stream, with the northerly jet stream displaced much further north than "normal". This is exactly the type of pattern that has evolved. Leaving much of the Midwest in a drought, and recently areas on the southeast and near the Canada/United States border, inundated with rain.
This is just an update for now, there will be more to come and I complete my updated profile.
