Monday was hot, but most people took it in stride. After all, they said, this summer has been relatively cool — as far as Washington summers go.
Alex Sosnowski, an Accuweather meteorologist, attributed the comfortable weather of late to a “persistent” dip in the jet stream into the eastern United States. The dip, which remained until the last week in July, allowed one cool air mass after another to drain down out of Canada and then off the Atlantic seaboard.
But now the jet stream has retreated to the U.S.-Canadian border, Sosnowski said. In its place is a classic summer scenario — a clockwise-rotating high pressure system off the coast of Bermuda that brings warm, moist, and often uncomfortable air northward out of the Gulf of Mexico. The Bermuda High will dominate through August, Sosnowski said.
The pattern change also may translate into an uptick of tropical action out of the Atlantic Ocean. For the first time this summer, waves of low pressure streaming off the southern coast of Africa have a shot at developing into tropical storms or even hurricanes, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Whether those storms survive to the United States is always the big question. The hurricane center last week lowered its hurricane season outlook to “near- to below-normal,” though it also cautioned the public not to let its guard down.
