Autumn is working its way into town tomorrow, according to astronomers (it’s been here since the 1st, according to meteorologists) and this time of year I’m either talking mostly about the tropics or about transitional systems bringing big storms or big changes to the Plains. This year, I’ve not had the need for either. For one thing, it’s been colder than normal to begin the month, so a fall like transition isn’t as notable. For another, the Atlantic is serving all of the tropical features (for now) to the north Atlantic.

With all of the various debates over the state of the climate and sea surface temperatures, the fact that the storms are churning in the Atlantic instead of the Caribbean shouldn’t quiet any of them. Another explanation is that storms are forming further east because of the warmth, and able to veer north early on in the life cycle because of the environment for storms to do so, caused by a warmer climate/sea surface.

Don’t misunderstand this as a good thing. The Caribbean and Gulf are still plenty warm, and conducive spots most of the late summer for tropical storms. It hasn’t happened yet because of prevailing flows and upper level factors. Really, the only debate we are avoiding with the dynamics of this tropical season is the one that forces on air meteorologists to decide on the namesake of the Gulf.

We are in the second half of the tropical season, and with only one storm in the month of September, things have gone our way, whatever the cause is. After many bad seasons in a row in the tropics, we were owed an easy one.

Even as hurricanes continue to avoid the US Mainland (the next watch area, even if it develops, is forecast to curl into the Sargasso Sea), storms have emerged at a pace not far off the pace of a typical season, or what hurricane forecasters had suggested at the outset of this season. The storms are, of course, a threat to maritime activity, but they also have an impact on the coast, even when storms aren’t making their landfalls. Sur

Hurricane Erin spun off the coast between Bermuda and the Carolinas, causing dangerous rip currents and some high waves and erosion on the Outer Banks. The storm induced swimming bans up through the mid-Atlantic, and forced dozens of rescues of swimmers.

Last week, hurricane Kiko travelled north of the Hawaiian Islands. This is not an unusual track for hurricanes to take, and it has helped the north shore of Oahu become known for its surfing environment. Kiko, even though it was weakening and tracking away from the Islands churned up a gnarly surf. The whole thing was discussed by Surfer.com, who also included this video.

They are called cold snaps, because they are over in a snap, just like heat waves are called that because they rise and fall. It’s been a while since we’ve enjoyed an extended period below normal, especially outside of winter, but naturally, that won’t be the long term trend.

A pool of cold air has dived south through the Plains and spread to the East Coast. The Mississippi Valley is seeing their coolest temperatures since March or April (and about a month too early), and the weekend will prove to be on the chilly side on the coast. The pattern will finally start to break, with a better formed trough shifting off shore, allowing warmer air in.

But still, that shift isn’t coming until Tuesday, and that is only in the Plains. Warmer air will start to return, but the surface ridge will wrap from New England the Gulf Coast, keeping a lot of the country dry, both in terms of rain, and lack of humidity. On the Coast, the below normal temperatures are going to last perhaps all week next week.

With all that said, we will be into mid-September, and yet, the monthly forecast still looks like this:

Even with that much time below normal, parts of the eastern 2/3rds of the US are above normal, and most of the region will be near normal, according to prediction from the CPC. Not only will the cold snap end, we can reasonably expect a course correction through the end of the month.

It’s been a pretty tame North Atlantic season thus far. The most headline grabbing feature thus far was Emily, a strong storm to be sure, with the greatest impact a dangerous surf seen along the Eastern Seaboard. This has been perpetuated by Fernand, currently churning in the western Atlantic. We are to late August, just a couple of weeks from the traditional peak of the season, and that is as wild as it has been.

Last year unleashed a torturous season, with hurricanes Helene and Milton doing damage in the southeastern US after Beryl had slogged through the Texas coast earlier in the season. Perhaps, with those names, you already recognize where I am going with this line of thought. Obviously, Helene – H and Milton – M, would come after where we are at with Fernand – F. Things can still get busy! That’s true, but also not the full point I was preparing to make.

At this point last year, Francine, 2024’s F storm, was still a month out. By this point in the year, 2024 had one fewer storm than we do in 2025. Certainly, there is a lot of season left to go, but also, 2025 hasn’t been abnormally slow, either.

The true assessment of a busy or not busy season will come at the end of the year, after we see where and with what intensity storms arrive on the coast. Since the news cycle hasn’t been overwhelmed by stories of landfalling hurricanes, we haven’t really thought about any tropical weather. That may change, perhaps not. Whatever the case, the Atlantic basin sure hasn’t been quiet this summer.

Yes, we are pretty deep into August, but it’s been a somewhat active summer on the family front, so the gears at Victoria-Weather are moving a bit slowly. It’s been a busy summer, but not in the tropics. and the severe weather has been related, largely, to heavy precipitation this year. Perhaps partly because of the dynamics of the season, and certainly because of their skill in general, The Weather Channel is having a very strong stretch, and this year just keeps getting better for them.

Outlet	Forecast Wins (year)
The Weather Channel	7
National Weather Service	6.33
Accuweather	5
Clime	3.5
Weatherbug	3
Victoria-Weather	2.83
WeatherNation	2.33

The air in the middle of the country for the last week or so has been, well, juicy. Dew points are in the mid-70s as far north as Fargo, even in the middle of the night. This is very uncomfortable, especially for the Nordic persons in the Upper Midwest, a hearty people known more for their winter resilience. There is a reason for this boost in humidity.

Corn.

Part of the respiration process for plants includes moisture leaving through evaporation. I’m not a biologist, so I won’t labor to explain that part of it to you I will say that the amount of evaporated moisture goes up with the volume of plants. Certain types of plants also produce more moisture.

Broad leafed crops, particularly corn, is an efficient evapotranspirator, and later in the season, when corn is at its heartiest for the season, local moisture climbs. Corn is a cash crop in heartland, and the elevated dew points seem to be most impacted in Iowa and Illinois. As temperatures start to cool ahead of the harvest, the moisture can be so much that it leads to overnight fog until it arms up in the afternoon.

This time of year, though, it ha a destabilizing effect on the atmosphere. When even a weak system moves into such a moisture rich environment, storms erupt with even more rain, and potentially some additional wind and hail, because of the updrafts enhanced by the supersaturated air. Of course, more and heavier rain can only lead to one thing.

More corn.

Through the middle of the year, there is probably not a bigger weather story than the flooding in central Texas, particularly around Kerrville that claimed the lives of over 100 souls, including many at a youth camp along the Guadalupe River. There is a political story out there as well, involving the reduction in force at the National Weather Service, thanks to a drastic reduction in science funding from the administration. It’s easy to draw lines between the two stories, but it isn’t quite as clear as that.

A structural problem with meteorology and forecasting is the ability both to disseminate warnings properly and have potentially affected persons heed those warnings. As has been widely reported, flash flood warnings were issued several hours in advance of the floods, but the warnings came in the middle of the night to a part of the world that receives warnings all the time. Nevertheless, dangerous weather was expected, and meteorologists did what they could to try to get warnings out.

Before I dig into the issues that enhanced the natural disasters tragedy, I do want to reassure anyone who will listen. The post will not be abandoned in times of duress. For example, tonight there is a risk of severe weather in the northern Plains, and offices that may have lost staff, like Aberdeen or Grand Forks will reallocate their resources to ensure that they are fully staffed through the duration of any severe outbreak that goes on. There will be support for other offices in the region. This is meteorologists banding together despite the headwinds against them.

The issue is a longstanding issue particularly with meteorology and broadly with human nature. Models don’t yet have the resolution to go house to house or even neighborhood to neighborhood in our forecasting or even our weather reporting. Remember earlier this month about the tornado striking Victoria, Minnesota? I still have family in town, and they said that nobody in town was talking about it. The twister was only a few hundred feet wide, and left 95% of the town unscathed.

Because of the nature of weather, communication and geography, there isn’t a good way to reduce the area of a warning to specify only those who will definitely be impacted by a weather event. As a result, even when bad weather occurs, most people in an area feel their warning may have been unwarranted, as did nearly all of Victoria, if they looked only at their front yard after an actual tornado passed through their city limits. This leads to a severe “boy who called wolf” attitude about weather warnings across the population.

Improving the definition of models, as well as seeking the best way to disseminate warnings is a joint effort of meteorologists, programmers and social scientists. This is the work that is arrested during the funding freeze from Washington. The immediate warnings may or may not suffer, but they certainly aren’t going to get better.

Additionally, while the reduction of force is a problem in itself, the specific type of person that lost their job exasperates the structural problems in meteorology. Probationary – young – employees were let go across the NWS and NOAA. There is going to be a gap of people who had been in NOAA for a few years, and through the end of this budgetary restriction, with no new blood, no new ideas. The advances will not only cease, but in a few years, that’s when regression really begins. It’s going to be tough to avoid.

It’s probably too soon to say that the tragedy along the Guadalupe River was a direct result of the layoffs at NOAA, but it is quite appropriate to point out that the Administration is in no position to address the shortcomings that magnified this tragedy, and it likely won’t be for a very long time.

It’s a rapidly changing culture out there, and it i leading to a lot of weather related headlines. One thing that we hear about quite a bit is the emergence of AI boosted models and model guidance. In that spirit, I guess there is no surprise that Clime was the forecast winner this month. Of course, they are 5th best of all forecasters for the year, but maybe the tide is turning.

National Weather Service	5.83
Accuweather	5
The Weather Channel	4
Clime	3.5
Weatherbug	3
Victoria-Weather	2.83
WeatherNation	1.83

As noted on Facebook over the weekend, there was a tornado in the namesake town for this site, Victoria, Minnesota. It occurred in the middle of the night Saturday into Sunday morning, which is an incredibly dangerous time to endure severe weather, and the storm did track through a couple of neighborhoods. Fortunately, the damage to structures was minimal, and there were no injuries reported because of the storm.

Contrary to my initial thoughts, seen in the Facebook post, the NWS surveyed two twisters, following a similar path to what was charted above. You can see their official survey, which involved investigators on the ground and drones, on top of the real time evaluation and storm reports that I used.

While the storm did cause tree damage, and some light damage to homes, including where trees fell on them or siding was ripped off, the twisters also spend quite a bit of time in open fields, Carver Park Nature Reserve and especially over Lakes. While the shoreline areas obviously sustained some damage, the fact that the cells passed over, by my count 6 different lakes really limited the human toll storms in a metro area could have taken.

9:42AML It’s been a wild start to spring, and it is going to be wet soon again, but today and tomorrow are mostly going to be recovery days. Flashflood warnings in Ohio will air out. Maybe a few severe storms in the mid-Atlantic, but nothing widespread, and even less tomorrow. Then we’ll start ramping up again. Sorry.