Weather Watch

June 05, 2008 08:41 am

— By MARK HANOK

June began with delightfully cool weather, but now we’re getting a major change to a weather pattern that’s much more typical of the middle of summer.

The jet stream has pushed far to the north, and the very warm and humid air that has been in the southern Great Plains has moved northeastward. Temperatures will average well above normal right through early next week.

On Friday morning, a warm front will lift north of our region, followed by a southwesterly flow of very warm, increasingly humid air. Clouds early in the morning will give way to partly to mostly sunny skies during the afternoon, with highs from 85 to 90 degrees.

A weak cold front will stay to our north and west on Saturday, keeping any showers and thunderstorms over western and northern New York. We’ll get partly sunny skies and highs in the middle 80’s, along with moderately humid conditions.

A very warm and humid southwesterly flow will prevail on Sunday, with mostly sunny skies and highs from 85 to 90 degrees. Look for more of the same on Monday, with partly sunny skies and highs from 85 to 90 degrees. A cold front may bring a few showers and thunderstorms on Monday night and Tuesday morning, then clearing Tuesday afternoon. A northwesterly flow of cooler, drier air will take over for the middle of the week. The combination of high pressure centered in the Ohio Valley and an intensifying storm over Labrador brought stellar May weather to the Cooperstown area and the entire Northeast on Thursday. For the second straight day, there wasn’t so much as a cloud in sight, and brilliant sunshine continued all day, with desert-dry air, and excellent visibility. Early in the morning, the lowest temperatures in the state were found in our area, with lows near 30 degrees and frost in valley locations. Just like the high desert, afternoon temperatures rebounded to the mid-70s.

In the Western Catskills and Cooperstown area, Friday seemed like the high desert, with crystal clear skies and lows in the mid-30s early in the morning, then mostly sunny through early afternoon, with a high around 80 degrees. During the late afternoon, skies were mostly cloudy as the warm front approached from the west.

May ended with a variety of weather in our area on Saturday, as a warm front crossed central New York during the morning. Mostly local weather forecasts called for cloudy skies and occasional showers and thunderstorms, but the rain was limited to a few hours in the late morning, then a few widely scattered thunderstorms in the early afternoon. The high was 76 degrees at our weather station in Otego, before a 15-minute thunderstorm moved through the area.

As a cold front moved through the western Southern Tier, drier air pushed eastward ahead of the front, and the rain shifted to the south, with severe thunderstorms in Virginia, Maryland, and the Delmarva Peninsula, and thunderstorms and heavy rain from southeastern Pennsylvania to central New Jersey.

In Otsego County, skies were partly to mostly sunny during the mid and late afternoon, with temperatures around 70 degrees. As the cold front crossed the region, there were a few scattered showers in the early evening, then clearing with a drier northwesterly flow.

The Western Catskills and the Cooperstown area got some of the coolest air in the nation to begin June on Sunday. A summer-like weather pattern prevailed across most of the nation, but as low pressure tracked eastward to northern Maine, a light, upsloping northwesterly flow kept temperatures about 10 degrees cooler than normal in Otsego County.

For a change, there was actually more cloudiness than our weather forecast had indicated, since there was a cold pool of air associated with an upper-level trough that was stronger than expected, as it moved through central and eastern New York. Skies were mostly cloudy along with intervals of sunshine; highs were only in the middle 60s.

Monday was an absolutely magnificent June day in the Cooperstown area and throughout most of the Northeast, with high pressure centered over West Virginia, and a light northwest flow of mild, dry air. Skies were mostly sunny with highs in the mid-70s. Ahead of a strong upperlevel low over eastern Colorado, and along a stationary front, severe thunderstorms developed during the afternoon and evening across eastern Montana and western and central South Dakota.

To the south, the mercury soared to 101 degrees at Austin, Texas and to 97 degrees at Houston.

A large storm system in the center of the nation, and a stationary front extending eastward to the Ohio Valley, provided for a long corridor of severe thunderstorms from the southern Great Plains to the mid-Mississippi Valley all the way to Indiana and Ohio on Tuesday.

During the early evening, there several tornadoes reported in northern Missouri and central Illinois, and three-inch hail in western Nebraska; additional thunderstorms developed in central and eastern Virginia.

As a cold front moved slowly southward on a line from northern New England to Lake Erie, skies were mostly sunny all morning in our region, with temperatures in the upper 70s by noon.

Then clouds rolled in ahead of the front, and skies were mostly cloudy in the mid- and late afternoon, then light showers arrived just before sunset.

Mark Hanok is an Otego based meteorologist. You can visit him on the World Wide Web at http://members. aol.com/weathergazette.