Meteorological autumn (SEP/OCT/NOV) 2021 ranked 3rd warmest on record. Almost the entire nation ranked in the MUCH ABOVE normal category including California, the West-central and Southwest U.S., all of the Great Plains and into the Northeast States. Only Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina ranked near normal.

More heavy precipitation in the 5-day forecast for Southwest Canada and into Washington is indicated by GFS. The 6-10-day forecast has shown heavy precipitation into California this week but an upgrade to excessive amount is indicated today. New to the forecast is more excessive precipitation into California days 11-15. There is no direct connection to the tropics ALTHOUGH the Madden Julian oscillation (MJO) shift toward the Dateline is definitely helping.

The Hawaiian Islands brace for a rare “Kona Storm” this week. An intense storm has become quasi-stationary west-northwest of the islands and caused surface wind across Hawaii to turn into the southwest. A southwest wind in Hawaii is rare and known as a leeward or “Kona” wind. Coupled with the unstable atmosphere associated with the upper trough, the moist southwest wind leads to frequent wind squalls, life-threatening flooding rainfall and even heavy snow in the highest mountains.

The wettest spring since 2010 has just completed across Australia. Spring was an all-time top 10 wet spring in Australia’s climate record. Developing La Nina will be blamed for the wet pattern and certainly contributed. In fact, according to multivariate ENSO index (MEI) the La Nina climate pattern emerging in 2020 never ended in 2021. However, other factors contributed (heavily) to the wet pattern across Australia during their just-ended meteorological spring season.