NEWS

Summer expected to keep its cool

Todd Hill
Reporter

Illustration of sun and cloud

BUCYRUS – North central Ohio hasn't experienced a hot summer for three years now, and if weather forecasters are correct in their predictions, the region won't be sweating this coming summer too much either.

A variety of forecasting organizations have released their outlooks for the summer of 2015 across the country, and while there are some stark inconsistencies from one to the other, most of those boil down to a question of degree – or rather, degrees.

Despite their discrepancies, however, there's one expectation about the coming season they all share. El Nino, an unusual warming of the sea-surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean that can have a large impact on weather across North America, is back, and expected to get a lot stronger.

Should that occur, the summer of 2015 could be a progressively cool one for north central Ohio. Not every forecasting outlet is on board with that assumption, but nobody is calling for a hot summer in this part of the world.

"The emerging El Nino event will be potent this year, likely stronger than the 2009 event and possibly rivaling the 1997 event. The downstream impacts from this event will likely drive deceased risks of big heat this summer in the eastern and central U.S., especially later in the summer," said Todd Crawford, chief meteorologist for WSI, which works with The Weather Channel.

"Our current forecast for national cooling demand this summer rivals that for the cool summer of 2009, and even that may be a bit conservative."

The Weather Channel expects a wide swath of the center of the country to be much cooler than normal this summer, with less extreme but still cooler-than-normal areas extending eastward from there, encompassing Ohio, as well as westward. By August, forecasters believe, the bubble of much cooler temps is expected to cover the Buckeye State.

The National Weather Service's Climate Prediction Center, however, is considerably more conservative in its outlook for the summer of 2015, and Accu-Weather's forecast doesn't mention chilly temperatures for this region at all. In fact, the latter is more concerned about spreading drought conditions in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

"Drier-than-normal conditions in the winter and for the most part this spring will lead to a drier soil and hotter temperatures. This can put stress on crops for this region," Accu-Weather's long-range forecaster Paul Pastelok said.

Moisture levels are presently adequate across all of Ohio, according to the USDA, but the counties of north central Ohio have generally seen less than two inches of rain this May when they should be above four inches.

Like The Weather Channel, the CPC expects below-normal temperatures to be the rule this summer in the southern Plains, but it does not see that anomaly extending up to Ohio. Incredible rainfall rates have brought catastrophic, even deadly flooding to Texas and Oklahoma in recent days, and that excess soil moisture is likely to hold temperatures down there into June, or longer should the rains continue.

Everybody is on board, however, with El Nino being a major player in our weather, possibly into next winter.

"The cool-season strength of El Nino remains uncertain at this time. Stronger events are associated with greater chances of above-normal temperatures in the Great Lakes region," the CPC said in its latest seasonal discussion for the coming summer.

Strong El Ninos are readily tied to mild winters in Ohio, but next winter is of course a long way off. A strong El Nino was originally forecast to keep us warm last winter, but failed to materialize. And while climatologists are now pegging the likelihood of a major El Nino later this year at 90 percent, those expectations can easily change down the road.

"Two other years where a strong El Nino developed by late summer or later – 1982 and 1997 – were used as analogs for what might occur this summer. In those two years, temperatures were overall cooler than average across a large portion of the United States," WSI's Crawford said.

A cool summer, of course, could impact everything from tourism to energy. But even if chilly temperatures don't materialize, motorists in this part of the country can probably expect a break at the gas pump this coming season.

"Gas prices will remain weak, particularly in the Midwest where shale gas production remains strong and year-over-year inventory levels remain high," predicted Chris Kostas, a senior power and gas analyst at ESAI Power LLC, in WSI's summer forecast.

The price of gas has been inching upward over the past few weeks in north central Ohio, but with the Memorial Day weekend now behind us, that trend could now come to a halt.

"This summer will be the cheapest at the pump across much of the U.S. since 2009 with prices likely remaining well below year-ago levels. I forecast that the national average will not breach $3 a gallon this summer," Patrick DeHaan, a senior petroleum analyst for GasBuddy.com, said.

thill3@nncogannett.com

419-563-9225

Twitter: @ToddHillMNJ