Unsettled pattern overtakes much of United States

Welcome to May! My favorite month of the year. Past me would be worrying the weather pattern sucks for an upcoming storm chasing vacation. Current me doesn’t have one planned (although I’m thinking about a short one in June or July) and now belongs to a pool that opens today. Of course, this means I’m instead bugging out that our first swim and sun weekend of the year is going to be messed up by rain …

Weather Watch

Another day of storms. Although the intensity is somewhat lower compared to recent times, more severe weather is anticipated from the Ohio Valley region to Louisiana and Texas along a slow-moving frontal zone. Areas still cleaning up from a derecho-like wind event in the Northeast and flooding in the Southern Plains will again be targeted.

Wet weather overtakes eastern U.S. this weekend. A cutoff low-pressure area is slated to cause forecast trickery to its east in coming days. Currently organizing in the northern Plains, the jet stream dip will surge southeast before getting stuck for a time, seemingly somewhere in the Midwest. To the east of that, rounds of rain are a good bet this weekend into early next week. Much of that region remains drier than normal so the rain should be mostly welcome.

Lightning links

New Zealand hit by destructive winds, heavy rain and snow and high waves.

Water temperatures are cooler than average over a big chunk of the Atlantic a month from hurricane season.

Widespread wind damage

Severe weather was in the forecast for Ohio to New York on Tuesday, but the event outdid expectations and ended up reaching at least some criteria to be classified as a derecho. As usual, there is a debate to whether or not we should call it one.

Hundreds of wind damage reports encircled the Pittsburgh region as well as surrounding spots to the west, east and north. At least four have been confirmed killed, with more injured, due mostly to trees falling and electrocutions from downed live wires.

Wind gusts of 79 mph in Westmoreland, Pa. and 77 mph in Rome, N.Y. were among the most impressive at quality-controlled weather stations. Gusts of 60 to 75 mph also swarmed Ohio and continued beyond State College in the center of Pennsylvania. Damage surveys suggest isolated instances of winds 90-plus mph.

About 300,000 remained without power this morning, according to PowerOutage.us, following a peak past half a million right after the storms.

Parts of the region will deal with a severe weather threat again Thursday.

About

Weekday morning newsletter by a journalist/forecaster. Connecting weather and climate change dots while occasionally stirring the pot.

Find this interesting? Forward it on and tell a friend!