A day later than the usual first-weekday-of-the-month airing (due to the busy and difficult news day Monday), I shared my take on the month of June ahead.
The weather pattern, overall, should be dominated by a large “ridge” – a broad dome of high pressure typically full of dry and warm air – over the central United States with a “trough,” or dip in the jet stream typically carrying cool air, over Eastern Canada. Anytime a trough of cool air is positioned anywhere near New England, a prediction of warmer-than-normal weather is precarious, because cool incursions love to expand around these dips in the jet stream.
So while much of the central United States will likely end up warmer than normal, it’ll be hard to get that warmth into the eastern Great Lakes and Northeast, so a near-normal temperature forecast (for June, average high temperatures in the 70s) is likely the best forecast.
The only possible exception would be Cape Cod, where this pattern brings an increased propensity for a westerly wind flow, so the Cape actually may end up above normal, if the influence of the still-cool June ocean water can be negated by keeping the west wind over land.
When it comes to precipitation, New England really could use a couple of soaking rains to make up for the ongoing rain deficit.
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Anyone who gardens, landscapes or works around the yard can attest to how dry the ground has been in New England lately – I was mowing the lawn Monday and while the lawn isn’t dried straw like it can get later in the summer, I ended up completely covered in dust by the time I was done, because the dirt is so dry right now.
If the weather pattern shapes up the way I’m seeing it, I don’t see a lot of change to the dry pattern heading into June, and we actually may find drought conditions expanding in New England this month.
As of this writing, southern and central New Hampshire are “abnormally dry” – one category below moderate drought. With the aforementioned jet stream trough setting up over eastern Canada and a big ridge of dry and warm weather over the central United States, this doesn’t bode well for rain in New England.
The problem essentially becomes that you’ve cut off Pacific and Gulf of Mexico moisture because the former is deflected north while the latter is suppressed over the Gulf of Mexico or immediate Gulf Coast, so in New England, your best bet at precipitation in this pattern is to get strong enough cold disturbances to swing around the base of the eastern Canada trough to send cold fronts southward and spark thunderstorms from time to time.
While that’s likely to happen, those thunderstorms tend to be scattered, unevenly distributing rain and unreliable as a water source.
Putting all of this together, I think we need to be in the mindset for possible drought and continued dry conditions for growing and gardening through the month. It’s worth noting, this does contribute to the chilly nights we’ve had lately – some in northern New England suffered garden and crop losses with the early morning June 1 frost: dry land loses heat quicker than moist land.
Hopefully, we’re progressing far enough into the season to avoid any additional frost, but there will undoubtedly be more cool nights in this pattern.
