Dan's Blog: 90 Day Forecast

TULSA - It will be a very hot summer. We've already tied a record high, and it's not even July.

The Climate Prediction Center's 30 and 90 Day outlooks call for more hot weather in Green Country. It’s time to reflect on the man that made summer tolerable.

Wikipedia credits engineer Willis Haviland Carrier as the inventor of the first modern electrical air conditioner back in 1902, five years before Oklahoma became a state.

The New Yorker designed it for a lithograph and publishing company he worked for. That will get you "employee of the month" anywhere.

After testing it for several years he was granted a patent for this amazing device, which he called an "apparatus for treating air."

Your apparatus for treating air may be working overtime this summer. The latest information from the Climate Prediction Center is not good news.

The July Outlook has our temperature above normal. The large area extends from Illinois to eastern California. The bullseye is in southern Nevada and western Arizona.

30 DAY OUTLOOK:

In case you forgot, (though I don't know how that would happen), last summer we a had a legendary heat wave . Brutal.

The July statewide average temperature was 89.1 degrees, making it the warmest month ever recorded in our state since weather records began in 1895.

Tulsa was 100 degrees or warmer 26 times and reached a high of 107 four separate times in July of 2011.

The idea of another hot July is pretty frightening. Drought was also a big part of last summer. In July, Tulsa only had .36" of rain, which is 2.6" below average.

The 90 Day Outlook isn't much better. The Climate Prediction Center's outlook for July, August and September is for above normal temperatures.

The above normal area extends from Oregon to Florida. Notice the two distinct areas where confidence is greater for above normal temperatures. One of those areas extends from extreme eastern Oklahoma into Indiana.

It does not mean it will be hotter in this area, only that the model shows a higher percentage of confidence in the above normal temperatures.

90 DAY OUTLOOK:

The outlook for moisture isn't quite as gloomy. We have "equal chances" for rainfall to be above or below normal during the summer. This is something we did not have during last summer's drought.

Autumn will be here soon. In four months I expect to hear someone say, "Wow, it's cool, wish it would warm up."

I'm anxious for that day to get here.