The latest monthly climate outlook for the US was released today. It shows that for most of the Southeast, conditions are likely to be above normal for June. Temperature is leaning slightly towards above normal temperatures in western parts of the region but elsewhere there are equal chances of near, below, or above normal.

The main driver of the climate prediction is the extremely wet soil moisture that we have at the end of May due to tropical air mass thunderstorms as well as the heavy rain from Subtropical Storm Alberto. With wet soils it is easy to generate daily thunderstorms and so more rain is likely when we start with wet conditions. The wet soils will reduce daytime high temperatures since more of the sun’s energy will go into heating up all that water, and more clouds may occur with evaporation of surface water. Quite a change from the end of April! Not a surprise, then, that drought is not expected in the next month.

  

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