Inquirer.com – Zurich DR

Category: Climate

  • Summer arrives officially Sunday in Philly, with El Niño, drought, and the moon as major players

    Summer arrives officially Sunday in Philly, with El Niño, drought, and the moon as major players

    Given the atmosphere’s impatience, it would be understandable if some folks believe that the summer of 2026 began weeks ago.

    But officially, the astronomical summer does not start until 4:24 a.m. Sunday, the instant of the solstice, when the sun beams its most direct light on the Tropic of Cancer. (That’s the one that bisects Mexico.)

    Perhaps the pleasant temperatures this weekend are an overdue solstice gift to the region.

    Officially, on 14 days this year, the temperature has reached at least 90 degrees at Philadelphia International Airport. While not a record — this happened 21 times before the 1991 summer solstice — that is a total more appropriate to midsummer. The annual average is about 30, and usually this kind of heat doesn’t get a jump start in mid-April.

    Is it going to get hot again?

    A woman walks past Swann Memorial Fountain as the sun rises last month.Alejandro A. Alvarez / Staff Photographer

    Are polar bears white?

    At least three veteran seasonal forecasters have commented that they expect the burgeoning El Niño event to work against punitive hot spells in the region.

    During El Niño, sea-surface temperatures remain above normal in the tropical Pacific for several months, agitating the overlying air and affecting weather across the globe. This one may be among the strongest and is forecast to mature during the summer, earlier than usual.

    During six early-developing strong El Niños, summer temperatures in Philadelphia were near or below average.

    However, the scientists at the government’s Climate Prediction Center evidently are not buying it. In both the July and the July 1-through Aug. 31 outlooks posted Thursday, they saw the odds favoring above-normal temperatures.

    On average Philly has a combined 20 days of 90-degree highs in July, when the Earth is the farthest it gets from the sun, and August. (Along with a September bonus of two more.)

    How come it’s warmer, if we’re farther from the sun?

    On average the Earth is about 93 million miles from the sun, but since its orbit is an imperfect circle the distance varies by roughly 3 million miles.

    At 1 p.m. on July 6 our planet will be 94.5 million miles from the sun, by EarthSky’s calculation, its farthest distance of the year. It makes its annual closest approach in January, which is why winter in the Northern Hemisphere is the shortest season; the gravitational bump speeds up the trip, and February gets shortened.

    The seasonal weather rhythms are about the Earth’s axial tilt, not distance from the sun, and the planet takes its time responding to the changes in solar energy. Just as January is colder than December on average, July is more than 5 degrees warmer in Philly than June on average. Just how warm it gets the rest of this summer may have a lot to do with how much drier it gets.

    Will the drought conditions ever end?

    They always have, but this has been quite an extraordinary run, even if the plant life has managed to avoid major distress.

    The entire region, save for extreme northeastern Bucks County, is in a state of “severe drought,” according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, with Cape May County in “extreme drought.”

    The promised rain to start the workweek should help, but Philadelphia has experienced 10 consecutive months of below-normal precipitation, a rarity in an area in such proximity to bodies of water that are sources of rainfall. All of New Jersey and Chester County remain under drought emergencies.

    Dryness can promote heating, since the sun does not have to divert energy evaporating water.

    However, unusual coolness also can accompany dryness, said Sarah Johnson, warning coordination meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Mount Holly. Having lived in North Dakota for 20 years, she knows her dry air.

    A lack of moisture can be a boon for cooler nights. Water vapor in the air inhibits nighttime cooling by blocking heat from escaping into the atmosphere.

    It also happens that less vapor in the air is ideal for sky-watching, and that could come in handy in August.

    This could be a big year for the Perseids

    In this long exposure photo, a Perseid meteor streaks above Madrid.
    Francisco Seco

    Last year, you may recall that the moon showed its big face during the peak of the annual Perseid meteor showers, the most popular of the year.

    This time around, the moon is getting out of the way, and will be in its “new” phase during the peak early mornings of Aug. 12 and 13.

    While the Geminids, which occur in December, are considered the most prolific showers of the year, according to the American Meteor Society, they are not as popular as the Perseids: People tend to prefer August nights to December’s.

    The Perseids are so named because the cometic detritus that is ignited by the atmosphere appears to radiate from the constellation Perseus. In the early-morning hours, that typically is low in the northern sky.

    Under ideal conditions — ultra-dark, light-pollution free skies — as many as 90 meteors an hour might be visible, EarthSky says.

    But the moon will be the star in late August

    Billy Penn waves at the moon during a lunar eclipse.MICHAEL BRYANT / Staff Photographer

    Two weeks after the Perseid peak, Philadelphia and most of the rest of the Western Hemisphere will be treated to a lunar eclipse in which just about all of the moon will be in shadow.

    The show begins at 9:24 p.m. Aug. 28, and more than 90% of the moon will be obscured by Earth’s shadow three hours later. It will be all over around 4 a.m.

    Chances are excellent that the region will still be needing rain, but may it choose another night.

  • Strong storms are possible in Philly Thursday, but they won’t have anything to do with Arthur

    Strong storms are possible in Philly Thursday, but they won’t have anything to do with Arthur

    It would have nothing to do with Arthur, which on Wednesday became the first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, but the Philly region may be in for tropical-storm force gusts and strong thunderstorms Thursday.

    Even if the rains don’t come — and on Wednesday, the storm odds were close to 50-50 — wind gusts to 45 mph are possible during the afternoon, said Alex Staarmann, meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Mount Holly, “quite unusual for June.”

    Not so unusual these days would be the forecast high, which would mark the 14th time this year that official readings in Philly had reached 90 degrees or higher. That is about half the average total for an entire year.

    But this heat will be more of a ripple than a wave, and the outlook for the holiday weekend is looking spectacular.

    When the winds and storms may arrive in Philly on Thursday

    As a front approaches, winds from the southwest are expected to gust to 20 mph during the morning and 30 to 40 mph in the afternoon.

    While the winds are all but a certainty, it was unclear if any strong storms would pop Thursday. If they did, the best estimate would be between 1 an 8 p.m., the weather service said.

    “The environment is favorable for damaging winds if anything does develop,” Staarmann said.

    “The biggest question is how widespread the storms are going to be,” he said.

    Uncertainty is a near 100% certainty with June storms

    Such uncertainty is standard fare with thunderstorm threats this time of year, said Rich Thompson, forecast operations branch chief at the government’s Storm Prediction Center, which would have to make a call on posting severe storm watches.

    With so many moving parts and micro-features such as terrain involved, predicting the behavior of small-scale storms is “incredibly complicated,” he said, and on some days clues are frighteningly lacking.

    And while observations have improved immeasurably in recent decades, “we still aren’t observing most of what’s there,” he said. Land-based surface observations are far more plentiful than those over the oceans, which cover 70% of the atmosphere, and in the upper atmosphere, where the weather is manufactured.

    Even if the atmosphere were perfectly measured, he added, meteorologists would still have to contend with the fact that the physics involved in forecasting are not completely understood.

    Arthur and the weekend outlook for Philly

    As for Arthur, knighted with a name by the National Hurricane Center at 11 a.m. Philadelphia time Wednesday as it matured off the southeast Texas coast, it is forecast to deluge portions of the Gulf states.

    Then it is due to head out to sea before it could have anything to do with Philadelphia or the Jersey Shore, which is likely to be a popular destination this weekend.

    For Friday, Juneteenth; Saturday; and Sunday, the beginning of the astronomical summer, highs are expected in the mid-80s with sunny days and no threat of showers until early Monday.

  • New Jersey growers get a federal disaster declaration for freeze-damaged crops

    New Jersey growers get a federal disaster declaration for freeze-damaged crops

    It won’t bring back the lost apples or peaches, but New Jersey has secured a federal disaster declaration for the crops damaged in April’s rare heat-freeze sequence.

    The declaration, which covers all 21 counties, makes the state’s farmers eligible for emergency federal loans, Gov. Mikie Sherrill announced.

    A similar designation covering 17 Pennsylvania counties, including Lancaster County, was secured last month.

    As much as $300 million in crop losses were reported by both states as the result of record heat on April 15 and 16 that induced the tree-flowering process to pick up the pace, setting them up for the kill that came with the freezes of April 20 and 21.

    Growers have been warning that apple crops were destroyed and that any peaches would be as scarce as they were pricey.

    Gov. Josh Shapiro has described the Pennsylvania damages as “unparalleled.”

    It is unusual for temperatures to hit 90 in April, said Bob Oravec, a lead forecaster at the Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Md.

    Rarely, however, have they been followed by such devastating freezes.

    Some of the fruit crops, including the strawberries that are now in season, have managed to survive, Ben Casella, national policy director at the New Jersey Farm Bureau, said last month.

    He added that Jersey growers are “fully promoting that they’ll have a strong crop of blueberries.”

    Cherries and grapes didn’t fare so well, but was too soon to determine the exact extent of the losses.

    The disaster designation makes farmers eligible for low-interest loans from the Farm Service Agency, what Sherrill called “a critical first step toward recovering from their crop losses.”

  • Philly hits a record high 97 as the World Cup fest begins. Strong storms may come later.

    Philly hits a record high 97 as the World Cup fest begins. Strong storms may come later.

    The heat and humidity have transformed the atmosphere into an obnoxious broth — just in time for the World Cup FIFA Fan Festival — and we can do without the fireworks, thank you.

    The official temperature at Philadelphia International Airport had reached 97, setting a record for the date, with a heat index of 103 at 4 p.m. It beat the high of 95, reached in 1985, and an encore was expected Friday, when the record also is 95.

    In addition, the steaminess has added volatility to a vapor-swollen atmosphere that is even making the windows sweat. The city’s heat emergency remains in effect until 8 p.m. Friday, and the National Weather Service is advising people to stay hydrated and in air-conditioning if possible.

    With a front approaching, strong thunderstorms with potent winds are likely at some point during the FIFA fan festivities in Fairmount Park on Friday.

    It will still be hot during the weekend, forecasters say, but as the World Cup activities heat up, the humidity will be so comfortable you might think you had moved.

    As for game-time conditions Sunday for the Ecuador vs. Ivory Coast match in South Philly, spectators might want to pack an umbrella.

    When the storms are expected to arrive in Philly

    The government’s Storm Prediction Center warned that the region could be affected by “multiple disturbances,” and the atmosphere is well-juiced with moisture.

    Rich Thompson, chief of forecast operations at the storm center, in Norman, Okla., said the center might have to issue a severe watch for the Philly region Friday, when he happens to be on duty.

    Those attending the FIFA Fan Festival on Lemon Hill in Fairmount Park will be well-warned in case of severe weather, said Philadelphia Soccer 2026 spokesperson Melissa Ferdinand, via screens, announcements, and text messages.

    In short, if you didn’t like the weather Thursday, you won’t like Friday’s, either.

    The weather service warned of the “risk of heat-related illnesses for much of the population — especially those without effective cooling or hydration.”

    The outlook for the weekend

    Temperatures on both Saturday and Sunday are expected to reach 90 or better, but the air is going to be refreshingly drier. All thermal comfort being relative, the differences will be as noticeable as they are welcome.

    At game time Sunday — 7 p.m. — it should be quite comfortable in South Philly. However, another system may touch off more showers during the game in advance of what will be a refreshing air mass to start the workweek.

  • El Niño has formed officially, and it likely will be one of the strongest on record

    El Niño has formed officially, and it likely will be one of the strongest on record

    El Niño has formed officially and it is likely to become one of the strongest on record, with potentially profound impacts on the hurricane season and the U.S. winter, government meteorologists announced Thursday.

    As it matures during the summer and fall, it is likely to hold down the numbers of Atlantic tropical storms. And while it is impossible to predict what it might mean for winter around here, some of Philly’s strangest winters have coincided with El Niño.

    Scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration see a 63% likelihood that this El Niño will qualify as “very strong” and rank among the elite of the last 75 years.

    El Niños occur every two to seven years as part of a natural process as east-to-west trade winds that push water into the western Pacific slacken and massive amounts of warm water move eastward.

    In the key El Niño region of the central Pacific, sea-surface temperatures over a 2.4 million-square-mile area become anomalously warm. In this instance, NOAA says, the temperatures may end up being 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit higher than normal.

    All that warm water interacts with the overlying atmosphere to disrupt weather-bearing winds worldwide.

    The naming has been attributed to Peruvian fishers who lamented the effects of the warmth on the anchovy catch. They called it a Spanish term for the Christ child, since this tended to happen around Christmastime.

    El Niño and the hurricane season

    El Niño’s impacts can be enormously disruptive, but it’s possible that residents of the Caribbean, Atlantic, and Gulf coasts will catch a break.

    The phenomenon can have a dampening effect on hurricanes.

    One well-documented effect of the warming is that it generates powerful upper-air winds from the west that can have shearing effects on incipient tropical storms in the Atlantic, thousands of miles away.

    On Wednesday, Philip Klotzbach, a researcher at Colorado State University, which developed the prototype for those seasonal hurricane outlooks, reduced the storm numbers in his forecast and is now calling for only five hurricanes. The average is seven.

    Some of the quietest Atlantic hurricane seasons on record have occurred during strong El Niño years.

    El Niño and the Philadelphia winter

    Strangeness is no stranger to Philadelphia winters, but strong El Niños have coincided with extremes of snow — in both directions.

    In 1972-73, for example, no measurable snow fell in Philadelphia, and only 0.8 inches accumulated in the 1997-98 winter. Philly was hit with a 21.3-inch blizzard in February 1983 and a 2-footer in January 2016, both during high-end El Niño years.

    Unfortunately, in the short term, El Niño isn’t going to be doing anything about this heat and humidity.

  • Oceans are warming, but scientists are concerned about this cold blob

    As the planet warms, it’s becoming increasingly rare to see cooler than average conditions across vast stretches of the ocean, particularly as an expected super El Niño scorches parts of the Pacific.

    But right now, an expansive area of well below-average ocean temperatures exists in the North Atlantic, to the east of Newfoundland. There, unusually cool waters have lingered for the last year.

    This patch of cool water is occurring in one of the few areas where the ocean hasn’t warmed in recent decades — and where scientists are closely monitoring for changes in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC).

    The AMOC, which extends deep into the Atlantic Ocean, is a vital current that carries heat northward from the tropics toward the pole and plays a critical role in the climate around Greenland, Iceland and northern Europe. If the cold blob persists for years, it could eventually cool the climate in these places — and signal this key current is weakening. Should it collapse, a massive cooling could occur in the Northern Hemisphere, while it warms in the south; sea levels could rise in some areas and seasons could flip in others.

    As this conveyer belt of warm, salty water reaches the North Atlantic, it loses heat to the cold air above, becoming denser and sinking into the deep ocean. But as ice in the Arctic melts, introducing more freshwater into the sea, it becomes harder for the water to sink, potentially slowing down the current.

    Scientists have been monitoring the current’s behavior in the Irminger Sea, south of Greenland, where the U.S. National Science Foundation recently announced that it is dismantling its ocean monitoring equipment.

    In Iceland, a collapse of the AMOC is considered a national security risk, since it would send winter temperatures plunging to minus-50 degrees Fahrenheit.

    Recently published research from a team led by Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute concluded that “the strong evidence for a weakening AMOC is a serious concern for society and policy” and that it requires “urgent attention.” However, other research published last year found no evidence of long-term weakening, but that it was still expected to slow some in the future.

    There’s high confidence that the AMOC is weakening according to the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC has indicated, with medium confidence, that it will not abruptly collapse before 2100.

    But what about the recent cold blob? Does it offer a sign of AMOC’s eventual collapse or can it be explained by a combination of forces?

    Over the last week, the current cold blob has trended on social media, raising fresh concerns about the status of AMOC.

    While stormy and windy weather in the North Atlantic have enhanced the cold blob this year, those factors don’t immediately describe why it has remained there for a year straight.

    Other natural climate patterns, such as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), have affected the ocean’s conveyer belt. When the AMO is in its positive phase, waters warm in the North Atlantic. The opposite is generally true when it’s in its negative phase.

    From mid-2023 to mid-2025, when the AMO was predominantly in its positive phase, the cold blob disappeared for extended periods. But when it became negative in mid-2026, the cold blob returned.

    Based on this, a mix of climate forces — including human-driven warming as well as natural variability — appear to be contributing to the current conditions. And climate models predict that the cold blob could linger for the rest of the year — and possibly expand and become more frigid.

    What the current cold blob means for the future state of AMOC is uncertain, but models stop short of signaling widespread cooling across western Europe, Iceland or Greenland — the doomsday scenario that has so far been the stuff of movies.

  • Steamy weather threatens fan fest, and Philly’s 1st World Cup game won’t feel like home to either team

    Steamy weather threatens fan fest, and Philly’s 1st World Cup game won’t feel like home to either team

    No matter what else happens at the World Cup’s FIFA Fan Festival events Thursday and Friday on Fairmount Park’s Lemon Hill, expect hot times.

    After setting four high temperature records since April, two more could fall this week in Philadelphia as a very warm June picks up steam and the mercury heads to the mid-90s on both days, while the atmosphere turns to soup.

    “It’s going to be very uncomfortable,” said Bob Oravec, senior branch forecaster at the Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Md.

    The National Weather Service in Mount Holly said heat indexes could reach 103 on Thursday and 105 on Friday in the city, and the Philadelphia Department of Public Health has declared a heat emergency.

    With the increase in water vapor and an approaching front, thunderstorms also could pop up, and festival organizers are well aware of the potential at what will be a “rain-or-shine event,” said Philadelphia Soccer 2026 spokesperson Melissa Ferdinand.

    Conditions are due to improve on the weekend, with lower humidity and just an outside chance of showers during the Sunday night match between Ecuador and Ivory Coast in South Philly.

    FIFA Fan Festival guide: Road closures, vendors, and more things to know before you go

    The weather outlook for the fan fest activities

    When the fan festival gets underway at 2 p.m. Thursday, chances are excellent that Philly will be chasing a record, with a Friday encore. The all-time high for both Thursday and Friday in Philly is 95 degrees.

    Thunderstorms are possible both afternoons, with about a 15% chance that they reach severe status — with wind gusts near 60 mph — according to the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla.

    Soccer matches will be televised throughout the festival, including Sunday’s game in Philly, and in the event of severe weather, the screens will carry evacuation orders, along with announcements and text communications, Ferdinand said. “Our highest priority is the safety of our guests,” she said in an email.

    On Saturday, conditions should improve markedly, with daytime highs several degrees lower and the mugginess backing off. On Sunday, temperatures are expected to climb back to the low and mid-90s, but the humidity should not approach the Thursday and Friday levels.

    The weather outlook for Sunday’s game

    Temperatures around game time are forecast to be in the upper 80s with comfortable humidity and a breeze under 10 mph.

    The only caution flag would be the chance of a shower, said Mike Lee, a meteorologist at the weather service office in Mount Holly, but “it looks like it’s going to be on the hit-or-miss side of things.”

    It should be comfortable for the fans, but upper 80s would not be a cool dip in the pool for the players, who can run six miles or more during a match — no home run trots in soccer. Throughout the tournament, heat and humidity certainly are going to be players, said Ryan Calsbeek, a runner and Dartmouth College biological sciences professor.

    He allowed that running this week was an ordeal. Granted, it got up to only 85 degrees where he lives in New Hampshire, but it was the first warm shot of the season, and his body let him know it was not enjoying the adjustment. Acclimatization certainly will be a challenge to the World Cup participants at the venues across the United States, Canada, and Mexico, he said.

    The atmospheric conditions on Sunday in Philly are not going to feel much like home to either team.

    The Ecuadorians may even get a little homesick. They play in Quito, right on the equator, but their stadium is at an elevation of more than 9,000 feet — 1.7 miles. Temperatures decrease with height, and the average high in June in Quito is 70 (the same as it is in January).

    Conversely, the Ivory Coast team’s home field is in Abidjan, a city of more than six million on the south-central Atlantic coast. The region gets prodigious amounts of rain as storm waves move across east to west across the continent, said Tom Kines, senior meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc. And is it ever muggy.

    Les Elephants might view South Philly as a vacation spot.

  • It may feel like 100 degrees in Philly on Thursday and Friday. The early heat could pay off.

    It may feel like 100 degrees in Philly on Thursday and Friday. The early heat could pay off.

    With the summer solstice still two weekends away, already the temperature has reached 90 degrees or higher in Philly nine times.

    And while the sequence of 90s has been extraordinarily premature, the early experience may come in handy this week as the region could experience triple-digit heat indexes.

    “It will definitely feel different,” said Ray Martin, lead meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Mount Holly, as the humidity and dew point, the measure of absolute moisture in the air, reach their highest levels of the year to date.

    Any 100-plus heat indexes may present challenges to some older residents, and those with heart and other health issues. The weather service Wednesday morning issued an advisory for indexes of up to 103 Thursday and Friday.

    But the heat the region has experienced, starting in mid-April, could be viewed as a sort of spring training for the discomforts to come, said Samuel Eldrich, director of the Temple Health-Chestnut Hill Hospital Emergency Department.

    “It’s all about adaptability,” he said. And it’s not just physiological, he said.

    In addition, a juicier atmosphere may squeeze out some much-needed rain.

    The regional forecast for the next several days

    Showers are possible Wednesday morning and late in the day, Martin said, with highs in the mid-80s. However, it might not get cooler than 70 degrees early Thursday, a sign that mugginess is on the increase.

    A moist air mass inhibits daytime heating from escaping into space, and the heat and humidity build for real on Thursday.

    “It’s not going to feel nice out there,” said Tom Kines, senior meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc.

    Shower chances are in the forecast Wednesday through Friday, and at times the atmosphere will be highly energized, Martin said. The Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., has outside chances for severe thunderstorms for the entire region Thursday and Friday. Isolated flooding downpours are not out of the question, Martin said.

    The heat and storm threats should back down some by the weekend, when Philadelphia hosts the World Cup match between Ecuador and the Ivory Coast, with a high about 90, the air less muggy, and rain looking unlikely.

    How hot has it been in Philly so far?

    Philly has logged four daily highs of 90 degrees or more so far this month, and nine since April — including four record highs — almost a third of the average for an entire year.

    Whether that is a harbinger of a punitive summer is beyond the realm of reliable forecasting, but the early heat is likely to have some positive effects, Eldrich said.

    Far more dangerous are hot spells that come abruptly after the weather has been relatively cool and comfortable for a period, he said.

    Early heat, which typically is short-lived, can make a difference in terms of how we respond to subsequent hot spells. “You’re more accustomed” to the heat, Eldrich said. “You’ve adapted to the lifestyle. You sweat more quickly, more easily.”

    People are more likely to stay inside, and stay hydrated.

    “It’s both the physiological and the cultural factors,” he said. “In the South, you don’t hear about heat exhaustion or heat emergencies. It’s something they deal with three-quarters of the year rather than a quarter of the year.”

    Drought conditions persist, but more rain may be coming

    The longer-range outlooks favor above-normal temperatures for the rest of the month, but they also see the odds tilted toward above-normal rainfall.

    That would be a switch. Philadelphia’s precipitation has been below normal for 10 consecutive months.

    “We could certainly use the rain,” Martin said. The interagency U.S. Drought Monitor has most of the region under “severe drought” conditions. State-declared drought emergencies remain in effect in New Jersey and Chester County.

    Any showers would mean temporary breaks in the heat Wednesday and Thursday, and the heat wave is not expected to survive the weekend, in keeping with a trend.

    Even though average summer temperatures have been rising, the hot spells this century have not lasted as long as some of those of the 1990s.

    “Let’s hope that streak continues,” Martin said.

    Whether it is related to heat-wave durations or the city’s responses to hot-weather emergencies, heat mortality is way down in Philadelphia.

    From 1991 through 2000, 227 heat-related deaths were recorded in the city. In the last 10 years, there were 37.