Just as if someone flipped a switch sometime around the
first of August, climate conditions here in southwest Missouri have changed dramatically! What was
a hot and dry regime turned rather abruptly to a wetter and cooler climate
beginning around the third of the month. Credit for the change can be partly
attributable to the movement of the dome of high pressure off to the southwest
over the past couple of weeks! This movement has allowed the jet stream to dig
further south and as it did so, it brought cooler temperatures that interacted
with all the moisture still lingering in the area.
As of August the 11th, my location had received 2.88
inches of rain against a ‘normal’ average of 3.15 inches (West Plains data). In
addition, the high temperatures went from the low one hundreds right on down to
the eighties. This change (especially the increase in rainfall) was not felt uniformly
across the region, sad to say. However, in my area located close to Forsyth Missouri, the additional
moisture coupled with the moderation of heat has had a good effect on garden
crops that had been withering. The
question in my mind, at this time, is will this trend continue?
There are some indications that, yes, this change may be
more the norm for the balance of the month and here’s why; 1) every day we are
not getting less and less insolation from the sun as it drifts lower in the southern
sky, 2) INSO readings are now trending away from a neutral profile to a more active
El Niño pattern that should see a return to wetter conditions across much of
the southwest and 3) even though were are now approaching a solar max in 2013,
the intensity has been pretty wimpy and some scientists think that could be the
trend for some time to come. All these factors bode well for a
rather pleasant (and hopefully wet) fall.
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