As summer draws closer, Chicago-area residents are surely curious what the weather will hold in store in coming months, and we have some new insight this weekend.
The National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center revised its projections for the coming months on Friday, and there could be some mixed news on the horizon.
According to the CPC’s projections, temperatures are expected to remain at normal levels for most of the summer. The different models, run in three-month increments from June to September, show that the desert southwest, the southern United States and the northeast could potentially see warmer-than-average temperatures.
During the summer months, slightly-above average precipitation is expected in the Chicago area, with heavy precipitation expected in central and southern Illinois and Indiana and other parts of the Ohio River Valley.
That precipitation pattern is expected to hold in the window between July and September, with similar normal temperature patterns.
According to CPC, a change is expected starting around August or September as fall nears. The forecast model for August-to-October shows the potential for above-average temperatures throughout the Midwest, with even stronger deviations from the mean in Indiana, Michigan and Ohio.
That pattern is expected to continue through the end of the year, according to projection models.
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Those projections jibe with the forecasts of a potential return of the El Niño weather pattern in coming months. During an El Niño event, Illinois and the Chicago area typically see warmer temperatures as a result of the phenomenon, with the highest impacts occurring during the fall and winter months, according to researchers at the University of Illinois.
One interesting note is the contrast between the projections and what typically happens during El Niño. The arrival of that phenomenon usually means lower-than-normal levels of precipitation, but NWS projections say a wetter-than-normal fall could occur in the upper Midwest.
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The NWS will continue to dial in those projections as the summer and fall months approach.
