THIS WEEK IN WEATHER 29 may 2026

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:03]Hello again, sick, twisted weather freaks, and welcome to another fun-filled, action-packed, and intellectually stimulating edition of this week in weather. I'm your host, the meteorologist, the DT here from weather, your captain of chaos, your colonel confusion, your command of catastrophe.

[00:00:17]Let's talk about this weekend weather.

[00:00:19]And this is uh Friday edition here for May 29th. And we have a really great weekend coming up here. uh and not just for the weekend, but excuse me there um also in a bunch of next week. So, let's get right into it. Lots to talk about here. So, uh we'll start out here. This of course is the website in case you haven't seen it. I'm sure some of you have at this point. Um and um you can see uh we have up and if I think I can blow this up a little bit here and uh we this is where you get our different products here. shop page, Mid-Atlantic forecast, the 3-week newsletter, 30-day forecast, that sort of stuff. Okay. Um, so here we're going to take start with the taking a look at the El Nino, what's going on here. So, this is the sea surface temperature map, May 27th.

[00:01:06]You can see this is the Elino developing here. This pool of warm water here is known as the PMM, Pacific Meridial Mode.

[00:01:14]When you have a super El Nino like we did in 201516 9798 8283 um the one back in 1877 the one back in 1899 these two features the positive the pool of warm water off the coast of Baja and the El Nino merge into one giant blob of super warm sea surface temperature anomalies. That appears to be what's happening in a regular moderate or strong alino. These two features do not merge. This is much smaller and this is not as big. So that's the one that that is one of the defining characteristics of a super elino when you're looking at the sea surface temperature anomaly maps or the global mean temperature anomal maps here as of uh around the globe. Now the Indian Ocean dipole they are circled in black. That is still neutral. That has not changed. If you look at the latest here from uh actual readings from um cyclonic weather uh Alex Borum, you can see region 3.4 that's this region here, the central portion of the El Nino region, the Enzo region. And then 1.2 is off the coast of Peru right here. So you can see that we look here, it's around 1° centigrade above normal, a steady climb upward, continuing and then 1.2 2 is really rocketing northward now. Plus 2.18.

[00:02:40]So um you know it get warms up, get a little break, warms up, a little break, warms up, a little break, but it's still it's still doing that. Uh the subsurface values are very impressive. Continue to see this again. This is from Alex more and more of cyclonic weather. Very useful uh great site for hurricanes and other stuff. But here we can blow this up and take a look at it. So this is subsurface. This is the equator right here at the surface. This is all subsurface here off the coast of South America, Peru. At about 50 m down, you can see this tan color which is 5° 5 1/2° centigrade above normal. The purple pink color is 6° 6 1/2° centiggrade above normal.

[00:03:20]There are several blobs of that. Another one here at a 140 west longitude, but all this super warm water is moving up towards uh the coast of Peru. And as this continues to move, it'll cause a super Elino to form. But then you can see that's what it's really doing here.

[00:03:37]All right. Um, and if we look at the latest projections, this is the folks from the Australians.

[00:03:42]And you can see their projections here.

[00:03:44]June plus 1.5 1.9 in July plus 2.4 centigrade in August 2.7 3.0 3.0. Now here you're getting these values of 3.0 for two months in a row which is right up in here. You can see it leveling off.

[00:03:59]That's important because this is the CFS.

[00:04:03]Now the blue line represents 3 degrees centigrade above normal. So these different color lines here are different ensemble members of the CFS. I think it consists of 20 different members total.

[00:04:14]And you can see that um once we get into September most of these projections have it at 3° centigrade or plus 3.0 centigrade and it stays that way through January. So that would mean four months, maybe five months of record warm sea surface temperature anomalies in ENSO region 3.4 right here. Now that's actually how you measure ENSO events. We don't measure them week by week or even month by month, although some people think you should. You measure them supposedly in three-month time increments. So, if this is true, this would be the warmest El Nino on record and it would break the 1877 event, which I think for 3-month period was 2 plus 2.7 or plus 2.8. This for, if this is correct, this is going to be plus 3.0 for three or four months.

[00:05:10]All right, what does that actually mean?

[00:05:12]This is what Elinos typically mean. Uh, strong Elino. You can see not a lot of heat anywhere in the country at all to speak of but but generally Elnos do not allow for warm summers as you can see now for the with respect to precipitation all the Elnos impact the eastern half of the country with rainfall and you can see moderate and strong which is what we've been experiencing uh you can see how dry runs from Louisiana eastern Texas up the Gulf Coast and the mid-Atlantic and New England that exists to some degree on both moderate and strong and that's because a lack of hurricanes, a lack of tropical storms, uh lack of tropical depressions just coming in. The Gulf of Mexico, moisture, the southwestern Atlantic is much reduced in terms of activity. Here's the latest drought monitor map. And um we've seen some improvement due to recent rains, the heavy rains here in the Gulf Coast.

[00:06:02]That's also some improvement in the Carolinas and Georgia. Um so the recent rains in Virginia, I'll take another couple another week to start to show up here. There is some most of the Midwest is in pretty good shape getting some dryness showing up in the western cornbt and the central plains also has two distinct pockets of D3 which is extreme drought and D4 exceptional drought where Nebraska and then in southwest Kansas western Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle right in here.

[00:06:31]All right, the MJO the Madding drilling oscillation that gives us a clue and it gives us an independent clue of what the weather models are showing. That's why this is important because you know weather models come and go. Sometimes they get things right, sometimes they get things wrong. But when you take the weather models and you look at the MJO, you can get another source of information. And when the MJO and the weather models match, that's a good confident forecast. And that's exactly what we see here. So this is the next 30 days. The GFS here is on the left. You can see we are now just moving into phase 7. And then we uh through mid June, we're in phase eight. Now, the European also does that, but after June 7th, it hook it hooks it back into the neutral circle. I don't know if that's right or not. So, we're just going to go with next. We're going to assume phase seven this week and then next week phase eight. And when we do that, what we get is this. Phase 7 is wet on the east coast. So, that's good. And we got where we are now. So, that's good to see. Get some rain there. Phase eight, however, is dry in the Midwest and the East Coast. And it's wet in the plains and the Gulf Coast. With respect to temperatures, there's no heat when that makes sense given the upper air pattern.

[00:07:41]That's not a surprise. All right, this is where we had been last couple days.

[00:07:45]So, let blow let me blow this up. This upper air mass, you can follow it a little better. So, this was the heat range we had last week when we had the 90s on the east coast. It got smashed down. The short wave came through. It pushed it down. Now on the in the eastern Pacific, we have this giant upper level in Gulf of Alaska and it's been dropping these bombs right down the British Columbia coast into central and southern California where they've had a very wet spring there by the way and then additional energy coming in breaks off into Texas. So this short wave here wants to head to the east coast but it can't. It's got to go over the top of the ridge. So this is your omega ridge.

[00:08:21]Now why do we call it the omega ridge?

[00:08:24]because it is shaped like the Greek letter omega trough ridge trough trough ridge trough that's what it looks like so this upper low and this short wave which is coming through uh this was on Wednesday this is what the cold front which ended the rain on the mid the mid-Atlantic the Ohio Valley in the southeast region this is the short wave that ended the front it pushed this ridge out to sea and now we have this big long wave trough and then what that does is that end up producing strong Canadian high pressure which drops out of Canada and then brings in the cooler air.

[00:09:01]Here's the rainfall for the past uh 7 days ending as of May 29th of the eastern half of the country. Notice that Chicago, northern, central Illinois, northwest Indiana, uh, north far northwest Ohio did not get much rain and neither did New England, but everybody, let's say, um, south of interstate the Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania turnpike really and right into central Ohio, it really got blasted. And some of this that white, some of these white dots right here, I'll bring this forward here, here, and here. This is, as you could look at the scale, this is like five, six inches. And this purple color stuff down here. You can see that's 6, seven, 8 in down in this area. Maybe even 10 inches. So there's a quite a bit of rain that fell in South Carolina where they really need it. The mountain southwest North Carolina, we had globs of six, seven inch rains in Kentucky and West Virginia and then five six inch rains right here just in Richmond and points east Chester over to Prince George and Hopewell. Um so it been a lot of rain.

[00:09:59]If we look at the anomalies, this this reflects it. This is for for the last 30 days, April 28th to May 28th.

[00:10:08]So, let me move this out of the way.

[00:10:09]Let's take a look at the Mid-Atlantic region, Ohio Valley region. And you can see uh the Ohio Valley, Indiana, Ohio, the southern portions of Kentucky have had anywhere from/ inch, inch and a half above normal. So, that's good.

[00:10:21]Pennsylvania has been fairly wet. And then West Virginia, western Maryland pretty wet. And then all the southern states is really the rains have really showed up in terms of knocking out the drought. And you can see a huge area of 3 to six inch rains from western South Carolina through southern Georgia across southern Mississippi, Alabama into Louisiana and the western Florida panhandle. They got blasted in rain here. Some of those areas are 7 in above normal rainfall in the past 30 days. And that is why the drought monitor map has changed and shifted down in here because of that kind of rainfall. All right, so that's the be that's that's where we stand there. Let's take a look at the maps and see what's going on. So this is the map here for Friday or Saturday morning. There you go. We have an Omega ridge. Let me blow shrink this down a little bit. Okay. Bring it up here. And that's what it is. You can see the mega ridge very nicely. I mean classic. Just classic. That's that's it right there.

[00:11:17]Okay. Upper low in uh New Mexico and Utah. A giant up below Alaska dropping more energy into this trough. And then you have this upper low here with a piece of energy moving off the New England coast there. And the high pressure comes in. Look where the front is way down in Georgia, Alabama. The close to Kansas City, Omaha. That's where the That's where the front is. The activity. Everybody else, it's just sunny and it's dry.

[00:11:42]Uh this just looks spectacular the weekend. Just just amazing weekend coming up with perfect temperatures. All right, so this is now Sunday into Monday. Anything change? No, the Omega Ridge is still there. Hasn't changed at all. Another big high coming down from Canada. Look where the front is. You normally don't get a cold front on June 1st or 2nd on the Florida panhandle.

[00:12:04]You don't normally get that. That's just shows you the depth of this unusual pattern.

[00:12:10]Now, it looks like the Omega Ridge pattern breaks down June 3rd. You can see there's no longer getting this weird configuration here. Upper level or it's leaving. And then you have this front low pressure area uh in Minnesota, some showers in Iowa right here. And then also a little bit of a system in the below Gulf of Mexico, the northwest Gulf of Mexico, Texas. But for the most part, the Midwest, the East Coast, the Southeast are all dry in New England.

[00:12:38]But just when you think it's about to change, it begins to snap back. So here comes another omega ridge pattern. The ridge is building here. This trough is going to drop along the east coast and this upper low is going to move to Texas. and that brings that some sort of storm to the Louisiana Gulf Coast. Now, some of the models have been showing this to be tropical. I'm not convinced that is the case. It could be a tropical depression or tropical storm. Probably not more than that, but that is a possibility.

[00:13:07]And then behind this uh uh the shore going through, there's the next high right here, the cool air. So, there's that. And then um that takes us all the way through uh uh the next seven days.

[00:13:18]In terms of rainfall in uh the eastern United States, it's all restricted to the Gulf, Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee. That's where the front is.

[00:13:28]Ohio Valley is bone dry. Most of the Great Lakes are dry. Mid-Atlantic is dry. Now, this moisture in New England is a little deceptive because that's actually coming in for this weekend. So, this is a little deceptive here. Um and then off low off the coast. So, uh don't be too worried about that.

[00:13:43]The temperatures, they're below normal.

[00:13:46]I mean, not shockingly below normal, but it's colder than normal. It's nice for, you know, late May, early June. Can't complain. Does it change at all? And going into week two, let's talk about week two. Now, here at June 6th and 7th, no, it doesn't. Not at first. The we now have a Rex block, not a mega block, because what's happened is you see this upper low that's now moved underneath the ridge, the omega ridge. So this is a Rex block. Trough. Upper low. Trough.

[00:14:14]That's a Rex block. Now, now those things never break down. What happens is the upper low pushes up against the the bridge and they they they just become a symbiotic relationship. They feed off each other. Meanwhile, the high pressure area is still again dropped down into the Great Lakes and the Ohio Valley. As you can see, the fronts are way to the south. This is just spectacular weather conditions, but it is a omega- a Rex block. There's no doubt about it. Okay. Um again, just to show you the distinction, every Rex block is also an omega ridge, but not every omega ridge is a Rex block. The difference is this upper low underneath it. There you go. Okay. Now, um this continues. This is now June 7th. This here was uh June 6. This is June 7th. It doesn't change much. The front is right there in the Midwest. And then um finally it looks like it begins to break down June 10th. Now here on June 10th, let it blow this one up. This is the European extended model here.

[00:15:16]Um and this is uh June 10th. We still have a trough on the west coast and another one on the east coast and in between you have a mega ridge and then the northern jets to the top of it. Now this is a really good pattern ring of fire thunderstorms for the Canadian prairies and they're going to get a lot of that but only for those guys. Then as the pattern breaks down and this comes forward, the question is when does this happen?

[00:15:39]Now the models are showing this happening June 13th, 14th. The Rex block is gone. The Omega ridge is gone. We have a zonal flow pattern. I think this is a little fast. I don't think it'll happen June 15th or 20th, but I could be wrong. I think this is a little fast. I like the solution. I just don't think it's going to happen too fast. In any event, if that does happen, that would mean the second half of week two would be fairly wet. And you can see that here's the GFS, the European Ensemble.

[00:16:03]They're both pretty wet in the Ohio Valley, the southeastern states. The European is here on the right is not as wet in Mid-Atlantic and New England, but other than that, they're in pretty good agreement.

[00:16:14]The temperatures look fine for week two.

[00:16:17]No problems there. Again, ideal temperatures. And now, if we look at the 30-day outlooks, just to give an idea, the 30-day outlook looks, Here's the European takes us to the July 1st. It's fairly weather. the southern states.

[00:16:28]This is great news for the drought into Virginia. Also very good news. All right. And then um the uh Australia model, which is the one in the lower right, same thing. It also has significant rain into Oklahoma, eastern Kansas, and Texas, just like the GF, the European does here off the map. I didn't show that, but it's the same idea.

[00:16:49]So, uh that's what the 30-day looks like. And finally, the CFS came out.

[00:16:53]Tropical tidbits. You can see for for June, it's pretty wet. There's a little dryness in Missouri and central Illinois, but outside of that, it's pretty wet. And that seems to be very reasonable. Uh, sort of in agreement with these other models are showing. All right, there you go. There's the update.

[00:17:08]This is meteorologist DT from Weatherrisk. I'll see you over on the WeatherK grains Twitter page, over on the Blue Sky page, and on the