Spring is officially over (climatologically speaking) and now we look forward to summer. I often get asked whether a hot spring means a hot summer, or some other permutation of that question. Often, there is no correlation between seasons. However, in the latest “Beyond the Data” blog entry from Climate.gov, Deke Arndt discusses the impact of a wet (or dry) spring on summer temperatures. Below I’ve put the US spring 2016 temperature and precipitation departure maps for comparison.
If Deke is right (and he usually is), in the dry areas of the Southeast we are primed for a warmer than normal summer, because the soil (and air above it) will heat up faster due to the lack of water, which slows down the heating by absorbing some of the sun’s energy. This would probably help keep the drought going unless the region gets hit by tropical rain. By comparison, Texas should be cooler than normal due to the excessive (and flooding) rains they have had there for the last few months, which will take a lot of energy to evaporate.
