'Sizzling' Summer Ahead For PA: Farmers’ Almanac

PENNSYLVANIA — Summer 2022 will be a sizzling one for Pennsylvania and much of the East Coast, with high heat that may only be mitigated by powerful thunderstorms.

That's according to the annual Farmers’ Almanac summer forecast prediction, which slates the Delaware Valley just between "seasonably warm and dry" and "hot, humid, and thundery."

It's a sobering prognostication just a year after a historic series of summer storms left tremendous damage around Pennsylvania. Floods, winds, and even tornadoes whipped through Philadelphia and its suburbs with the remnants of Hurricane Ida, leaving four dead and raising concerns of extreme climactic events in the region.

Only the Great Lakes region and New England will be free from a broiling summer, the Almanac holds, in their predictions released ahead of the June 21 summer solstice.

General storminess will mark the transition from spring to summer across the nation, according to the Farmers’ Almanac. While this indeed will be especially true along the Eastern Seaboard, it will also significantly impact the Great Lakes regions.

Summer will be “a hot one nationwide,” the Farmers’ Almanac said. The closest thing to a mild summer will be in New England and the Great Lakes region, but that prediction is based on a wave of cool air arriving in September, according to the Farmers’ Almanac.

According to the forecast, the dog days of summer in late July are expected to be “brutally hot,” with highs in the 90s and triple digits, and “blistering hot” temperatures are expected to persist over Central and Western states.

The worst of the heat should be over by mid-August, though, the almanac said.

Rainfall is expected to be about normal in the middle of the country, including in the Great Lakes and north and south-central United States; above normal in the Southeast; and below normal in the Northeast.

Drought conditions are expected to persist in the Southwest, where even the Desert Southwest monsoon rains aren’t expected to deliver any drought relief. The Pacific states will be unusually dry as well, according to the almanac.