The primary culprit to the extreme heat observed across much of Australia during the past 3 months is the enhancing influence on subtropical upper-level high-pressure ridging stretching from southeast of New Zealand to Southern Australia by the presence of MHW’s.

A moist southwest flow entraining moisture from waters southwest of California and helping to cause the wet APR/MAY pattern in the U.S. should start to lose steam after the last excessive rainfall event spread across the Southeast U.S. through the weekend.

The 5th day of the month release of the ECMWF monthlies yields high impact hot and dry projections for JUN/JUL/AUG 2025 across the Great Plains and Central Europe. Parts of these regions are already in drought and the outlook from ECMWF implies intensifying drought for summer 2025.

The Gulf of Mexico is very warm at 0.73C above normal, a warmer change of 0.17C during the past 2 weeks. The bulk of the anomalous warmth is across the Northern Gulf of Mexico and linked to the very warm month of April across the Gulf States and more recently to heavy rains evolving over Texas. The Gulf of Mexico is nearly half of a degree C warmer than 1 year ago.