Pattern April Showers

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Let's see ... last April was a torch; May was a drought to end none ... then Harvey and Irma ...
I'll take the cool spring, a good bit of rain during, and hope (and pray) the outcome is no 'Canes ... ;)

Phil,
Don't forget about the wettest met. sumumer on record at Gainesville by a wide margin that was well before the heavy rains from Irma.
 
anybody smell May 2003 reprise? Damn, hope not. Horrible flooding in the Tennessee Valley. (similar winter/spring to present...)
 
If summer would just be like this April has, I wouldn't despair so much, lol. A nice cad to cool things off every week. Why, I believe I might actually begin to like summer, if it would just be reasonable :)

Tony,
We're approaching what I've found to be the most crucial factor to determine the chance for a hot summer in the Atlanta area (and probably much of the SE), May-June rainfall. If if the May-June period is wet enough, not only would June likely not be hot but July-August would also likely not be hot due to wet enough soils lasting long enough.
 
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would love to see some hard stats on that theory...

Uh oh, I'm in trouble now. ;)
In all seriousness, I'm going to try to present some hard stats that support this.
Edit: Here's something; There have been 20 summers with KATL hitting 100+ July-Aug. Those 20 summers averaged during the preceding May-June rainfall 1" below normal, 6.5" vs 7.5".

As an aside, here's something quite interesting for KATL:
- Only ONE summer hitting 100+ 1888-1924 (3% of the summers)
- 12 summers hitting 100+ 1925-1954 (40%)
- NO summers hitting 100+ 1955-1979 (0%)
- 9 summers hitting 100+ 1980-2015 (25%)

Note the distinct multi-decadal shifts that appear to correlate well with global temperatures! It may or may not be a coincidence, but the sun was fairly quiet overall very late 1800s to very early 1900s. Also, ATL got much more wintry precip. then than in any other period and was colder in Feb. Global temp.'s dipped some then. Then there was distinct global warming 1920's-1950s as well as a big drop in Atlanta snowfall. The 1960s to 1970s also saw a global temp drop. followed by a global temp rise 1980s-2015. Coincidences?
 
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was curious about the specific May-June rainfall and warm/cool summers...

There have been 20 summers since the late 1870s with KATL hitting 100+ July-Aug. Those 20 summers averaged during the preceding May-June rainfall 1" below normal, 6.5" vs 7.5". More specifically, 70% had below normal rainfall May-June combined at KATL. So, I probably should call it more of a tendency than a strong correlation. Also, I was thinking about peak heat, not average temperatures. I wasn't clear about that.
 
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