‘Brutally hot’ conditions came in Farmers’ Almanac predictions
Cooling centers opened across Connecticut this past week following Gov. Ned Lamont’s “extreme weather protocol” activation last Monday.
With some rain expected this Monday, next week’s temperatures will remain in the upper 80s, but how long the heated and dry conditions will last remains unpredictable.
That is, of course, unless you subscribe to the longterm outlooks laid out in this year’s Farmers’ Almanac, which called for a “sizzling summer” with temperatures in New England expected to be “unseasonably warm” along with “drier than normal” conditions.
For more than 200 years, the Farmers’ Almanac has produced its annual weather forecasts the publication says are drawn from three scientific disciplines with forecasts emphasizing temperature and precipitation deviations from averages, and based on 30-year statistical averages prepared by government meteorological agencies and updated every 10 years.
The outlook for this summer predicted most of the country would “experience brutally hot conditions” in July with expectations that August would “continue to be blistering hot over the central and western states, but after mid-month, the worst of the heat should thankfully be behind us.”
Part of the almanac’s prediction for the summer of 2022 hits on areas dealing with drought: “Precipitation well below average over the Northeast,” according to the Farmers’ Almanaca outlook. “The Pacific States will be unusually dry as will much of the Southwest. (Even the seasonal monsoon rains over the Desert Southwest will deliver less than the normal complement of rainfall and will do no good in alleviating drought conditions in this section of the nation.).”
In addition to putting the state into its current “extreme weather protocol,” Lamont also this month requested local and state officials to begin requesting residents voluntarily cut back on water use as the state delved into a stage two drought event.
All of Connecticut is currently experiencing abnormally dry or drought conditions, according to the
U.S. Drought Monitor, which reported none of those conditions anywhere in the state three months ago.
“Residents should be mindful of their water consumption and take sensible steps to reduce impacts on other water uses and on the environment,” Lamont said. “We must begin early steps now to mitigate the potential for harm should the drought become prolonged.”