Cool and sometimes smoky conditions continued into June, while a week of showers and storms reverse the arid pattern We start the month with. We also look at numbers after the first half of 2023and preview main plot for the end of the year.
Escape from the summer heat, but not smoke
The summer got off to an unusually cool start last month, when the National Center for Environmental Information (NCEI) reported a statewide average temperature of 71.1°F and ours June 13-Cool over the past 129 years.
Our June weather is largely formed by the same elements as in Maybewith an upper depression enveloping the eastern US keeping us cooler amid prevailing northerly or northwesterly winds.
Meanwhile, the culprit behind our often sticky summer weather – the Bermuda high-pressure system, which tends to bring in hot, humid air from the south – is also offshore for most of the previous month.
The cooler superior model has the unfortunate side effect of engulfed in smoke from the Canadian wildfires in the second week of the month and again in the last days of the month. RaleighMillbrook’s monitor recorded four days of the month within Code Orange. The last time it happened was in July 2012 due to persistently high ozone levels.
Last month on June 29th, average daily PM2.5 concentration IN Winston-Salem was in Code Red, or Unhealthy, limit. It was the first Code Red day there since June 29 and 30, 2012, due to Ozone concentration increasedand the first Code Red Day for fine particulate matter since June 13, 2008, when smoke pushing inland from the Evans . road fire fires in eastern North Carolina.
A fire near the home also caused some concern about air quality on the south coast. Pulp Road flame burned over 15,000 acres at the Green Wetland Reserve, this reminded Code Red predicts air quality for County Brunswick and manufactured hourly PM2.5 concentration at the Code Red level in Wilmington.
While the air isn’t really fresh for most of June, this time of year is rare. Eastern regions such as Greenville And Tarboro did not reach 90°F until June 26, the most recent first occurrence for both sites in more than a century. And areas like Greensboro And Statesville still hasn’t hit 90 degrees at the end of June, compared with nearly a dozen warm days this time last year.
In fact, it was the best June on record for sites like Statesville, harmonyAnd airy mountain dating back 90 years or more, while Greensboro tied to the seventh-coolest June and the coolest since 1997. Elsewhere, it was the ninth-coolest June for City of Elizabeth, hill chapelAnd Monroeand interesting 4th for plateau, marshalAnd Monroe in the Mountain.
Late Floods
The dry weather in early June was capped by a wet week at the end of the month and it ended up being a bit wetter than the overall average. The NCEI reports statewide average rainfall of 4.59 inchesranked as The wettest June 57-June since 1895.
Showers were scarce early on and Raleigh has received only 0.06 inches of rain through mid-May. While cooler temperatures limit evaporation losses, the lack of rainfall still allows Unusually Dry (D0) conditions to emerge and spread across all three areas of the state.
But the rains came massively on June 19 like a upper level low pressure system perched on us, beginning five days of heavy rain across the state.
weekly totals peaked at 11.01 inches above Mount Sassafras along the South Carolina border. Our ECONet station on Mount Mitchell had 9.44 inches in the same 7-day period ending June 25, including 4.19 inches on June 20 – the wettest day there since November 11 last year when remnants of Hurricane Nicole switch over.
That extreme rainfall led to flooding in McDowell Countythe roads are swept away in Polk . CountyAnd high water in Kannapolis that request 30 people had to evacuate from their flooded homes.
Our wet end of June also had severe thunderstorms. On June 23, one EF-1 . tornado damaged several buildings in Kinston, and on June 26 hail up to 2 inches in diameter – the size of a hen’s egg – fell near Lexington And Mocksville.
Drenched with rain and hail, western Piedmont and the central Mountains were the wettest places last month, receiving more than 6 inches in total. 9.54 inches in Wilkesboro at W. Kerr Scott Reservoir was the most in any June since 1965, while oak mountain 6.93 inches and the 5th wettest June since 1991.
The northern coastal plain did not get much rain and ended June drier than usual. Tarboro has 1.24 inches and the record is the 4th driest June, while Roanoke Rapids measuring only 1.68 inches all month.
As a result, the current U.S. Drought Track map shows several regions with prolonged Unusual Drought conditions in the northeastern corner of the state. In those areas, several streams in the Tar, Roanoke and Chowan basins continue run below normal.
Annual update
It might be surprising with two cool months in a row, but past the middle of the year, the story of 2023 so far is dominating warmth. According to data from the NCEI, we are still on track to enter our fifth warmest year on record statewide, 1.76°F warmer than the 1991 to 2020 average and one degree below the average. The warmest year so far is 2017.
Locally, both Greenville And Wilmington had the 2nd warmest start to a year on record, while catkin associated with the warmest April from January to June and Charlotte had the first six months of the year the 6th hottest of the year.
How can those high rankings happen when summer starts off-season? Well, the first four months of the year are even more unseasonal in the other direction. remember winter without snow for most areas there are a few cool days after our Christmas cold snap and a sneakily warm spring, when pollen fills the air and flowers bloom up to a month earlier than usual.
Over the past two months, our average temperatures have generally been 3 to 4 degrees lower than usual, but earlier this year the departure temperatures were much higher than those on the warm side. February 6.7°F warmer than normal, and 80 degree days at the end of the month 27 degrees above normal in some spots.
Our precipitation ratings reflect a generally balanced start to the year. Statewide, we’ve received 24.23 inches so far in 2023, 0.21 inches above the recent 30-year average and the 64th wettest first six months. ours for the past 129 years.
Among the wet spots relative to their average rainfall, Greensboro 2.63 inches higher than normal with the 35th wettest start in the last 120 years and Hatteras was 3.54 inches above normal with the 21st wettest January through June since 1893.
Parts of the southern mountain range are a bit drier than usual, including Asheville (-3.50 inches) and Franklin (-5.39 inches). The northeast was also on the dry side, with City of Elizabeth Only 16.28 inches have been recorded so far – 5.03 inches below normal – and the 11th driest year since 1934.
Second half plot for July and beyond
Looking ahead to the rest of 2023, here are three key questions that will help determine how the year will shape up in North Carolina.
How long will summer be? July – our hottest month in terms of climate of the year – got off to a warm start, with the first 90 degrees of the year in the Triangle and set a low record at night in the Triangle. So is this the belated and dreaded start of bad summer days, or just a brief warm-up in the midst of a trending cool model?
Present three-month outlook from the Center for Climate Prediction suggests above-normal temperatures are likely for most of North Carolina from July to September, which suggests summer could be here.
Will hurricane season be preloaded? While we’re cool at home, sea surface temperatures across the main Atlantic growing region have risen record warmth for this time in the season. That helped tropical storms Bret And Cindy unusual far east development last month.
With such favorable conditions and waters continuing to warm, we could see even more activity in the Atlantic between now and the peak of the season in mid-September. That’s a far cry from last year, as we passed almost two months in July and August without any named storms.
What will El Nino mean for us? Warm water is also forming in the Pacific Ocean as the El Niño is developing, and some forecast shows that it becomes quite strong by the end of the year. As those El Niño effects begin to ripple through the atmosphere, a potential impact could increase transatlantic wind shear and eventually decrease tropical activity. During the last strong El Niño in 2015, only three named storms formed after mid-season, and when the 1997 El Niño appeared, only two storms form after September 4.
In mid to late autumn we can see more direct impact about our local weather through enhanced subtropical jet stream that will begin to bring more moisture-rich weather systems from the Gulf of Mexico or onto the Atlantic coast.
We’ve avoided any major droughts so far this year thanks to rains like the last one last month. However, if any areas start to dry out later this summer – especially if hotter weather persists – then we’ll likely look at an El Niño-induced pattern to reduce rainfall by the end of the summer. Last year.
And if we don’t dry out, we could experience a foggy second half of 2023, between the possibility of a tropical storm in the warm Atlantic and an impending El Niño.
