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Observation-Based Climate Outlook
Originally Posted on Tuesday 04/07/26 @ 9:23 AM —
I wanted to share with you my climate outlook for Philadelphia for the spring and summer.
I’ve noticed over the past winter a drought-leaning storm track trend that really had its origin last spring 2025. This trend has manifest itself multiple times over the the winter and this past month. Basically, the heaviest precipitation with multiple storms has stayed well north and west of the immediate Philadelphia area and adjacent South Jersey.
Sure, we had a big snow storm, but the total water equivalent was not more than 2″. We had several weeks where the old saying ” it’s too cold to snow” seemed to be spot-on. This past winter has left us with a precipitation deficit.
Recently, multiple rounds of multi-day cloudiness with showers has yielded low precipitation amounts of less than 1/3 of an inch. Really not enough rainfall. It wasn’t too many years ago that routine storms with multi-inch rainfall were common. It’s been a while since we had those. Last year, I focused on the observation that thunderstorms seemed to move to the far north and the far south of Philadelphia area and would dissipate as they moved into the city.
They say that “April showers bring May Flowers”. Unfortunately, I don’t seem much rainfall in the medium range models for us. The best example is next week, where the entire pattern will be dry for us.
With recent warning of a “super-El Niño” developing, I’m expecting climate change to make a rather disturbing statement with an extremely hot and a very dry spring and summer for the Philadelphia region.
Climate forecasting is not my hobby nor it is my main focus or interest. But every so often, the bigger trends regarding weather and climate work their way into my attention.
Long time visitors to this blog know that I’ve attributed past dry and hot patterns to the phase of the 11 year sunspot cycle and an acknowledged 22 year solar sunspot pattern also documented in the climate literature. But frankly, I’m not sure what causes these climate patterns.
But I can’t ignore an unsettling trend that’s been unfolding on the weather maps over the past year. And I thought I’d share my observations. Let’s hope I’m wrong and we have a ‘normal’ summer when it comes to heat and precipitation.
