California Heat Waves Triggered by Pacific Thunderstorms

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https://eos.org/articles/california-heat-waves-triggered-by-pacific-thunderstorms

Source:  By Mary Caperton Morton, Eos/AGU.

Excerpt: Californians looking to beat the heat this summer might want to keep an eye on the eastern Pacific and Indian Oceans. A new study has found a link between tropical thunderstorm activity and heat waves in California’s Central Valley. The culprit is a large-scale atmospheric circulation pattern called the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), which moves from west to east in a series of phases across the tropical Indian and Pacific Oceans, often dumping heavy rain in its wake. Previous studies have shown that the MJO can influence winter weather in North America, bringing fluctuating temperature spells to the Midwest and Northeast, but the new study, published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, is the first to study the MJO’s effects on North America during the summer months, says corresponding author Richard Grotjahn of the University of California, Davis....

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