A look ahead at the 2024 fall forecast

AccuWeather

AccuWeather Lead Long-range Expert Paul Pastelok breaks down what he forecasts to be a warmer-than-usual fall season this year. Additionally, he analyzes the risks of severe weather and wildfires.

Transcript

00:00Joining us to discuss what you need to know is this fall is lead long range expert meteorologist

00:06Paul Pasteluk. Paul, thanks for being with us and thanks for all your hard work putting this

00:09together. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, it's been an interesting summer, very warm summer so far.

00:16That probably is going to extend into the fall season. I do believe that we're going to have a

00:21pretty warm start across the nation. Come on, Paul. You know, fall is all about the sweaters,

00:27the pumpkin spice lattes, football. Everyone wants that fall chill, but you're kind of

00:31hinting to most of the country being warmer than the historical average. Yeah, you get a little

00:35older. You like to see some of those football games in the warm weather early on before the

00:38snow hits. So yeah, it does look like it's going to be overall a mild start to the fall season.

00:44September and October right now looking pretty warm and really not much changed from what you're

00:49seeing now. I mean, where the warmest air is is over the Rockies with this big area of high

00:54pressure that's been dominant for the second half of this summer season. And a lot of that will

00:59start to expand that heat possibly toward the Great Lakes in the interior northeast as well.

01:04So places like Detroit, Chicago and Buffalo, you still got some heat surges coming your way. A

01:10little cool down in the northwest and the southeast. The wetness is probably going to

01:13hold you down. But still overall, the start of fall looking pretty warm and humid down there as

01:17well. All right. When it comes to fall, everyone wants to know, are we going to get snow early?

01:21We're going to talk about the precipitation across the country. First, let's start

01:25with the rain. What we can expect. Yeah, we have drought conditions going on across the interior

01:29southwest. I think that's going to continue to expand northward as we get into the rest of the

01:34summer season, early fall season, probably getting into parts of Montana and Dakota is getting worse

01:39there. But there can be some precipitation that starts to arrive maybe as early as late August,

01:44but I think into September and October across the interior west. And that is good news for the big

01:49fires that are burning out in the west right now. The east coast, you're going to have to deal with

01:53some stall, cool fronts and maybe some tropical moisture that's going to keep you above average

01:58on the rainfall there. All right. The next map may be sad for some people because there's not

02:02a whole lot of blue that pops up on it. What can we expect when it comes to snow this fall? Yeah,

02:07I think as you look at the east, it's going to be kind of a slow start. Generally, you start to

02:11pick up some snow in October and the higher elevations across the interior northeast,

02:15maybe a couple of weeks behind on the significant snow can't rule out a couple of flurries then.

02:19But I think November is the month farther west, though, probably on a normal pace. The Sierras,

02:24the Cascades and the bitter roots. I think you're on target for a normal start time to

02:30your snowfall in the higher elevations as systems start to increase and pick up frequency there.

02:35Paul, most people know that spring is severe weather season, but there is a secondary peak

02:39in fall. And we're talking about the potential for more tornadoes. Yeah, it's been a very busy

02:43year this year. In fact, kind of related to the 2011 season where we saw several tornadoes that

02:49year, kind of an analog year, a year that we match up pretty well when we look at our seasonal

02:53forecast. And that year is on our target. Look for activity in the Tornado Alley area, Mississippi

02:59Valley early on as systems come out of the west, picking up a little bit in November across the

03:04lower Mississippi Valley and still can't rule out a few severe weather events here and there

03:08across the Ohio Valley to the east coast. And don't forget about the tropical systems. We saw

03:13Barrow bring a lot of tornadoes so far in the recent past year, and we could see that kind

03:19of activity replay again with any tropical activity. Yeah, excellent point there. Let's wrap

03:25things up with the wildfires because we've been seeing wildfires grow in the west. And what kind

03:28of wildfire activity can we expect as we head into the fall season? Well, the big news has been the

03:33Park wildfire that's in northern California. Over 400,000 acres burned at the present time,

03:40and the fires continue to rage in eastern Oregon and Washington as well. This is the

03:45peak season for them, okay? This is going to stay with us here for the rest of the summer season

03:49into August, and then we'll start to see a little bit more action, some precipitation coming in,

03:54and things should start to quickly die off in the northwest. Southern California, we're still

03:58watching mid-fall. But watch out, again, if it starts to dry out in the Great Lakes and northeast,

04:03little concern for a late surge of some fires across that area. The dry conditions could come

04:08in during the early to mid-autumn time period. And you can see the totals that we have here.

04:14We've actually upped these numbers just recently. This is the latest that you're seeing right now.

04:18Six to eight million we're forecasting for the U.S. to burn as far as acreage. And California,

04:24we've taken that up as well due to the fact of the park forest that's really increased the acreage

04:30right now. So very busy season, especially compared to last year. But it could quickly

04:35die off in the northwest, which is good news. We still got to watch southern California this year

04:40and also the northeast.

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