If ever there are months that you want some forecasting consistency, they are the spring time months. Every forecast we had in the month had a combined winner, which suggests that we got that in May. Still, Accuweather was a hair better than the rest, and were able to attain the title of Forecaster of the Month for themselves.

Memorial Day is the unofficial kick off to summer for a lot of people. There is only about a week left of school, give or take, for most people, June is around the corner and even the most northerly spots in the United States would be rightfully upset if they saw snow. Still, late may and early June in the Upper Midwest is usually in the mid 70s for a high. Warm, for sure, but not sweltering.

This version of the earliest stretch of “summer” features a blocking pattern in the center of the country. A temporary pulse down in the overall flow into the ridge is allowing a bit of progression for the pattern. This means that on the western side of the ridge, there is room for the trough to lead to surface development.

And if you are a long time reader of the site, my book, or just a first timer generally knowledgeable of things meteorological, you will know southerly flow precedes low pressure, and that means a hot, humid warm up for the middle of the country. In fact, for the next week, most of the north central US will be double digits warmer than normal.

Low pressure at either coast, including the one driving warm air north, are keeping temperatures below normal in California and the mid-Atlantic, while the fact that it is just generally hot already this time of year along the Gulf Coast are dampening some of the numbers there.

The hot, soupy weather will lead to some afternoon convection for much of this warm region, while surface features bumped up into Canada will ensure a little bit of extra convection later in the week in the Northern Plains and western Great Lakes. The calendar will say June, but it will fell like July or August for a few days.

Earlier this week, Supertyphoon Mawar swiftly intensified, then crashed through Guam as a Category 4 storm, the strongest in memory for the US dependency. Damage is extensive, power is out to the island and the recovery will be long and hard. Two men lost their lives, which is tragic, but also a lower figure than one might have anticipated. Mawar only strengthened after passing over the Mariana Islands, but if forecasts are accurate, Mawar will not go down as one of the typhoons of legend in the western Pacific.

There is some model consensus on Mawar’s future. An area of low pressure is expected to move out of eastern Mongolia and northeastern China, across the Korean Peninsula and into the north Pacific. It will drag a cold or stationary front westward and south through China. This will have an effect of bringing Mawar to a full stop, northwest of Luzon in the Phillippines and east of Taiwan, two major population centers.

Mawar will still get close enough to both islands to bring high surf and the portential for a little storm surge, especially given the proximity suggested by some models to Taiwan, but we aren’t expecting a direct landfall of this strong storm on either. Then, as Mawar weakens, it will turn north towards, but ultimately southeast of the home islands of Japan, another crisis averted.

That certainly isn’t to say that Mawar will be totally unimpactful after Guam. The storm will move swiflty through the Bonin and Volcano Islands, the most famous of which for Americans is Iwo Jima, which is presently uninhabited. There are also important shipping channels that will be disrupted while the storm churns between all these commercial venues.

There is plenty of time for the tropical season to take a more sinister turn, but for now, we tentatively have had a stay.