Is Summer Over for the Midwest and Northeast?

By Alex Sosnowski, AccuWeather.com Senior Meteorologist

August 24,2015; 9:44PM,EDT

 

 

A push of cool air across the Great Lakes and into the Northeast this week will have some people wondering if summer weather is over.
Air originating from the central Canada provinces will continue to be funneled across the Great Lakes and into the central Appalachians during the first part of this week.
In the cities of Cleveland, Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Toronto and Buffalo, New York, as well as the surrounding suburbs and countryside locations temperatures will average 5 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit (3 to 8 degrees Celsius) below normal for late August.

According to AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Elliot Abrams, "The air will be cool enough to raise the risk of waterspouts on the Great Lakes, especially on lakes Erie and Ontario."
At the very least, lake-effect clouds and showers will occur downwind of the Great Lakes.
Gusty winds will add to the cool feel of the air, when the sun is not out.
Temperatures will dip into the 40s at night over parts of the central Appalachians much of this week.
They will also spill east of the Appalachians to the Interstate 95 corridor.

For the major metro areas from Washington, D.C., to Philadelphia, New York City and Boston, the weather will turn less humid with quick cooldowns during the evening hours. Temperatures in the suburbs will get cool enough at night to force some people to shut their windows at night.
The forecast beginning during the end of August and into the middle of September is a challenging one.
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According to AccuWeather Chief Long Range Meteorologist Paul Pastelok, the weather from the Midwest to the Northeast will depend largely on whether or not each typhoon in the Pacific curves away from Asia or heads straight in to the continent.
When a typhoon over the Pacific Ocean curves away before hitting Asia, the buckling that occurs in the jet stream tends to push cool air into the Great Lakes and Northeast seven to 14 days later. When a typhoon moves directly into Asia, the jet stream pattern tends to allow warmth to build in the Great Lakes and Northeast.
"Atsani curved away from Asia last week and now we have the big push of cool air into part of the Eastern states," Pastelok said. "With Goni pushing directly into Asia later this week, we should see warmth building in the Great Lakes and Northeast during the first to second week of September," Pastelok said.
Even with Atsani curving away from Asia, the influence from the Atlantic is trying to push back in coastal areas.
How warm it gets will depend in part on tropical systems in the Atlantic associated with the Bermuda high pressure area, the track and strength of Danny and the next system, which may become Erika.
If the next system pushes closer to the East coast of the United States, then there may be another dose of 90 F weather over a broad area during the first half to middle part of September.

For now, AccuWeather meteorologists expect temperatures to rebound to near seasonable levels, which are generally near or above 80 in the Midwest and along the I-95 mid-Atlantic corridor during the last weekend of August and remain there into the first part of September, including the Labor Day weekend.
The dry landscape alone will help boost daytime temperatures to warm levels.
There is a chance to surpass those levels and feel more like July during September.
"Despite the cool air for the last week of August, this is not the end of summer weather for the Midwest and Northeast just yet," Abrams said.