Virtually the entire State of Florida is expected to be abnormally warm through the end of August. (Credit: NOAA/ CPC)
South Florida may be headed for one of the warmest Augusts ever thanks to daytime highs slightly above average and ultra-warm nighttime lows, some of which have been setting records.
Another set of records in the warmest minimum category fell or were matched on Saturday from West Palm Beach to Miami. The low at Palm Beach International Airport was only 84 degrees, smashing the old mark of 81 set in 2005. The low at Miami International Airport was 82, tying the record set in 1997, and the low in Fort Lauderdale was 83, tying mark set in 2008.
It was the sixth record minimum temperature at PBIA this month. Saturday’s low was only one degree shy of the all-time warmest low of 85 set on four dates: July 28, 2011, July 29, 2011, Aug. 9, 1950 and Aug. 12, 1994. The last time West Palm Beach reported a low of 84 degrees was on Aug. 16, 1904.
High temperatures at the airport have been in the 90s every day but one, Aug. 3. The month is running 2.4 degrees above normal with an average temperature of 85.4 degrees. That would put West Palm Beach well over the hottest August on file with the Southeastern Regional Climate Center, which was 84.87 degrees in 2005.
There are still 12 days to go in the month. But the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center forecasts above average temperatures in South Florida through Aug. 31.
Note that thanks to brisk winds off the Atlantic, Palm Beach has been several degrees cooler during the day compared to readings at the airport. The high on the island Saturday was 5 degrees cooler at 87.
* * *
Extreme heat waves worldwide are set to double over the next seven years, a new study contends. The biggest increase will be in tropical areas, according to a pair of researchers writing in the Institute of Physics journal, Environmental Research Letters.
By 2040, there will be four times as many extreme heat wave events as there are today. In addition, even more severe heat waves, which are called five-sigma events by scientists, are forecast to cover 3 percent of the globe by 2040 although they are “essentially absent” from current weather.
Unless CO2 emissions are curtailed by the second half of the century, researchers say, extreme heat waves will cover 85 percent of the world while the more severe five-sigma events will cover 60 percent by 2100.
“A good example of a recent three-sigma event is the 2010 heat wave in Russia, which expanded over a large area stretching from the Baltic to the Caspian Sea,” said lead author Dim Coumou, of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “In the Moscow region the average temperature for the whole of July was around 7°C warmer than normal – it was around 25°C. In some parts, temperatures above 40°C were measured.”
Researchers used climate models to come up with their projections, and tested them by analyzing past data. They found that the models could accurately predict a rise in heat extremes over the past 50 years.
* * *
The low pressure system that was spinning in the Gulf of Mexico late last week is no longer a threat to develop into a tropical system, forecasters at the National Hurricane Center said. Tropical Storm Erin has degenerated to a depression and is forecast to fizzle out in the Central Atlantic by Tuesday.
Forecasters were tracking a tropical wave that emerged off the coast of Africa on Sunday. They said it had a 30 percent chance of developing into a tropical system over the next five days.
