Two months ago, Millersville University meteorologist Kyle Elliott was sounding the alarm on drought, telling farmers to prepare for the worst.
After a chilly and rainy May, he's singing a much different tune.
"The drought's gone," Elliott says. "We basically had two to three months' worth of rain … in one month … in a four-week time span between May 3 and May 31. That'll do it."
While his initial prediction for a warm, dry April panned out, May was a stunner: It was cold, rainy and miserable in many parts of the region.
"It was just an onslaught of slow-moving upper-level lows," Elliott says. "That's really the explanation. Just storm systems that are becoming detached from the jet stream right overhead, and they're just taking days on end to move through the region. It's one of those things that you really can't predict with any kind of lead time patterns. They can become cut off over any part of the country."
Less heat, normal rainfall for summer
Rain may still pop up this week, but Elliott thinks the cold is likely behind us for now. Temperatures should get into the mid-80s and near 90 degrees by the end of this week.
The rest of summer, he says, looks like a "return to normal."
"I'm expecting a total of 10 to 20 90-degree days, which is far less than the 30 we saw last year, and it's actually below the long-term average of 23," Elliott says. "So, I do expect it to be a temperate summer overall, temperatures averaging near normal."
And he expects normal or slightly above-normal rainfall.
Elliott's prediction differs significantly from the official summer forecast from the National Weather Service.
The agency's three-month summer outlook predicts above-average temperatures for much of the Northeast, Ohio and Michigan, and above-average precipitation for the Northeast and eastern Ohio.
Elliott bases his seasonal forecasts on past years with similar weather conditions.
"For this summer's forecast, I am looking to years 1994, 2004, 2006, 2017 and 2020," he says. "With the exception of 2020, all those years had less than 20 90-degree days. In 2020, there were 40 90-degree days, but it was also wet. Those other years were about normal when it came to precipitation."
All those years were also ENSO-neutral - unlike an El Niño or La Niña - where sea-surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean were within a normal range.
Elliott also looked at years that had a wetter April or May. In all those years, April or May were wetter than normal, and they also had wetter-than-normal summers. "It was wetter in 1994, 2004 and 2006; 2017 and 2020 were near normal," he says.
But, of course, weather can be unpredictable. Just look at how May turned out.
Tropics are wild card
Any impacts from a tropical storm or hurricane can change the weather outlook in a heartbeat.
Elliott agrees with the National Weather Service's prediction of 14 to 18 named tropical storms this year. Water temperatures in the Lesser Antilles - southeast of Puerto Rico - the normal development area of Atlantic Ocean hurricanes, are well below normal, and this could make tropical development less likely.
Farther west, in the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico, waters are much warmer. So, there might be a lot of development farther west. But a big factor is the positioning of the so-called Bermuda High. If it comes farther west and strengthens, it could steer tropical storms south and west. If it stays east and weakens, that could mean more rain up and down the East Coast.
"If I'm right and the high is weaker than usual this summer, then that's another reason to be believe the Southeast coast and the eastern Gulf could be at risk for direct hits, and possibly later hits for our area," Elliott says.
"History says that if the Southeast coast of the U.S. and eastern Gulf get hit, we're bound to get hit by at least one or two remnant tropical cyclones. So, I definitely have that concern this year."
After last year's drought and the wet May, a return to normal could be a welcome reprieve. Time will tell.
