Interesting Study. We know that lack of ground moisture can make temps hotter and we know the Pacific plays a role in our Climate and Weather but these guys were able to figure out a way to possibly forecast a heat wave further out.
Each major event that happens almost always gets used in a new or existing research. This time they used the heat wave and derecho of 2012 to inspire them to find correlations...
More text with link...
Could Pacific waters give early warning of East Coast heat waves?
Quote:
New research concludes that warm and cold extremes in the central Pacific are often correlated with heat waves several weeks later in the Eastern United States.
Inspired by that summer's events, a team of researchers says it has found an unexpected pattern of sea-surface temperatures thousands of miles to the west that could give forecasters up to several weeks' warning that the central and eastern US may be due for a severe summer heat wave, beginning in a given week or even on a given day.
Since sea-surface temperatures play a major role in climate and weather patterns, the team turned to daily data conditions in the Pacific Ocean north of the tropics to see what effect they might have. They examined data gathered between 1982 and 2015 and found a correlation between hot days at weather stations throughout the eastern US and patterns where large pools of warmer-than-normal water shared boundaries with large pools of cooler-than normal water in the central Pacific north of the tropics.
The sharper this pattern was, the higher the likelihood that the eastern half of the US would experience extreme heat.
They dubbed this pattern the Pacific Extreme Pattern (PEP), and used it to successfully “hindcast” the 2012 heat wave.
The researchers suggest that the PEP may help explain the appearance of two other features associated with the 2012 heat wave: a paucity of soil moisture in the weeks or months leading up to the heat wave, and the build-up of an atmospheric circulation pattern that in effect parks a vast high-pressure system over the center of the country.
The lack of soil moisture yields hotter near-surface temperatures than would be the case with moist soil. The high-pressure system allows more sunlight through largely cloudless skies to bake the surface.
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