Hard pattern to break

All time record June highs were broken in many cities from Montana to Oregon and Washington State this past week.  High temperatures for several days reached, or surpassed, 100 degrees in areas that are not used to dealing with this extreme of heat.  Even in California high temperatures soared into the 90's, and looking at the extended forecast for the month of July, I don't think this type of weather pattern is really going to break, or change, in the near future.

Everything in weather is tied together.  I'm sure you've heard of the term 'Chaos Theory'.  A butterfly flaps its wings in Africa, and as a result a tornado forms in Oklahoma. The drought out west has had major impacts on not only the climate and weather out there, but also on the weather across the United States as it's likely one of the reasons for the extreme heat in the Northwest, western Canada and Alaska.

A ground that doesn't have a lot of moisture in it, is able to heat up faster and more efficiently than  soil that does have moisture.  The drought out west has been in the making for years, and it's only gotten worse in some locations.  When the ground heats up, the surrounding air heats up as well.  When this happens, the chance for clouds to build and produce rain decrease - only enhancing the heat and lack of rain.  It's an unfortunate, vicious cycle.  What that heat then does is help drive the jet stream further north up the west coast, bringing more heat to western Canada and Alaska.  And, as the old saying goes: 'What goes up, must come down'.  When a ridge builds out west, we typically see the jet stream dip in the opposite direction to the east across the Midwest and East Coast.  And that's exactly the pattern that we've been in these past few days.

Now, is this going to be a constant for the next couple of weeks?  No.  Because the jet stream pattern will change as it does across the World.  But, a trend that I've noticed is it always seems to revert back to the ridge out west, and trough out east pattern.  The ridge will flatten this weekend pulling some of the heat further east across the eastern Plains and Midwest, but just as quickly as it does that, some models bring it right back to the pattern that it's been in for most of June.  The July outlook from the Climate Prediction Center was released Tuesday, and it does show the 'cooler than average' trend continuing for a good chunk of the United States.  Now, this doesn't mean that the entire month of July will be below average, as we'll likely have some pretty hot days.  But overall, the month could end up being below average. 

As far as precipitation, that doesn't look good either for the middle of the country.  Some places that have been hard hit with rain this past month could very well end up with even more rain for this month.  This isn't something that's set in stone, but it's definitely worth keeping in the back of your mind.