Happy Hump Day everyone! As you all know, I have been a strong proponent of Gary Lezak’s LRC (Lezak Re-occurring Cycle) for nearly 20 years. I had explained this methodology for long range forecasting in a previous post on our Face Book page. Basically, the LRC is the centerpiece of the atmospheric jigsaw puzzle. The LRC shows that there is a “river” of air above us that is cycling regularly across both the Southern and the Northern Hemispheres. A cycle length evolves and then is consistent as the weather pattern repeats until the new pattern evolves the next fall. A unique weather cycle sets up each, with a different amount of days between cycles (picture 1). The LRC boast an incredible 87%+ accuracy over the 120 day forecast! The National Weather Service 3 day forecast has a general 85% accuracy over time. With having the accessibility of utilizing the LRC, I can go out several months and give a snapshot of what we can expect in our area. In picture 2, you can see that West Central Missouri can expect 2-3 degrees above average in temperatures for the month of August. In picture 3, we can see the the daily forecasted temperatures for the month of August and see when our “heat waves” and cool downs will be. According to the LRC, we can expect the first 2 weeks of August to be at or above average in temperatures. We can also see that August 15th-26th we can expect a nice cool down. Precipitation amounts will make the farmers in the area very happy, as picture 4 shows the LRC is predicting that all of WCMO will be at or above average rainfall based on a 30 year average. We are expecting 3.5″ to 4.5″ of rainfall for the month of August. Picture 5 shows when our wet/dry days will fall as well. Based on this graph, we are looking to have a wet start of the month followed by a dry period August 7th through 10th. Things ramp back up for the 3rd week of the month. All in all, a rather unique adequate moisture model for the month of August here in WCMO. I hope you found this insightful and interesting. I will have more discussions about the LRC and Weather 20/20 in future blogs, including when we could expect our first frost and snowfall for West Central Mo! Have a fabulous day everyone!
