Bizarre June Weather Pattern Leads To Destructive Storms, Floods, Dangerous Heat, Frost and Tropical Storm

Tornado damage in Moss Glen, Mississippi this week.
An strange jet stream pattern is causing extreme
weather across the U.S.

 The jet stream, that ribbon if high speed air aloft that encircles the globe, tends to get boring in the summer. 

The big southward dips and northward bulges you see in the colder months tend to flatten out. So in the summer, you tend to get just minor weather systems. 

Oh. sure. you get big heat waves, some severe storms and flash floods in the summer. But you usually don't get a series of large scale events like you do in the winter.

Except this month. Meteorologists are astonished by the dramatic dips and bulges and cut off lows that have repeated set up this month. And will continue to do so. 

There's a big dip in the West, causing some late season mountain snows, crop-damaging freezes and a smattering of record lows in some areas along and west of the Continental Divide. 

Then a northward bulge, a "heat dome" has become intense over Texas and adjacent Mexico, causing dangerous, all time record high temperatures along with intense humidity. 

Meanwhile, in the East, a big dip in the jet stream, accompanied by stalled upper level lows, keep forming over the Great Lakes or eastern U.S. 

This is causing some pretty unprecedented weather for this time of year. 

Plus, a minor adjustment in this pattern has big implications for us here in Vermont over the next few days. More on that in a moment. 

TEXAS HEAT

Arguably the most dangerous aspect of this pattern is the heat in Texas and Mexico. Several all time record highs for any time in the year were established in southern and central Texas on Tuesday. 

Those include 118 at Rio Grande Village, 115 at Laredo and 114 at San Angelo. The San Angelo record bested the old all time record high by a full three degrees, which is pretty impressive when you're talking about all-time highs. 

The Texas heat is expected to grind on well into next week. Highs in many places will easily top 100 degrees with heat indexes in the 110s and possibly 120s.

This heat wave comes, as I wrote yesterday, as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed legislation banning municipality from imposing water and cooldown breaks for construction workers. 

Meanwhile, temperatures in nine Mexican states reached 113 or higher on Tuesday.  Several deaths have been already reported in Mexico due to the heat.

SOUTHEAST STORMS

The Southeast is recovering from a spate of highly unusual June tornadoes and severe thunderstorms. Big outbreaks of tornadoes in the South are rare after early May, except when a tropical storm comes ashore, which isn't the case here. 

At least six people have died in the tornadoes, which left widespread destruction from Louisiana to Florida. 

The severe weather has died down somewhat, but storms with very heavy rain are continuing in the Southeast. Flooding has been increasing, and that threat of high water should last into next week at least. 

NORTHEAST/VERMONT EXTREMES

The cut off lows in the East during late May and early June were too far south to do us in Vermont any good. So we got too dry, and it appeared a drought was developing. 

At midmonth, these stalled or slow moving systems came closer to us, creating some very welcome rains.  Much of Vermont received two to as much as five inches of rain in the week ending Saturday.

We're getting a sunny, dry break this week in which this dip in the jet stream is re-loading with a couple new cut-off upper level storm.

These next two are positioned a little differently than recent ones, a little further west and south. This will open the door to a flood of very humid air starting Friday and lasting into next week. 

This situation means we will have plenty of showers and embedded thunderstorms through the weekend and into next week. Some of those will have torrential downpours, and some of them will move quite slowly. 

So, after our drought scare, we actually have the threat of local flash flooding starting this weekend and going into next week. At this point I don't see any large scale problems in the Green Mountain State, but some unlucky spots could see creeks and brooks rage out of control if a storm stalls or repeatedly hits any hilly terrain. 

It's unclear whether or where these flash floods might happen, but it's something to keep an eye on. 

TROPICAL STORMS

 This isn't quite related to our bizarre jet stream, but one tropical storm has formed in an area of the Atlantic Ocean that normally sees no activity until at least August. And a second tropical storm seems set to form in the same area.

This has to do with the record warm Atlantic Ocean waters I mentioned the other day.  The first storm, Tropical Storm Bret, has maximum winds of 60 mph and could get a little stronger as it approaches the Lesser Antilles in the next few days. 

Luckily, as Bret heads into the Caribbean Sea over the weekend, strong upper level winds should weaken it.

The second tropical storm should form within a day or two. It's too soon to tell how strong it will get or where it will go.

CLIMATE CHANGE?

Scientists think that climate change might be making the jet stream wavier, weirder and more prone to stalls, which fits in with what's going on now. Climate change probably is part of the story, but not the whole thing. 

We're transitioning into a global El Nino pattern, which features warm water in the eastern Pacific Ocean. Often, when this happens, it really messes with the jet stream, and that's what might well be goin on now.