UDC 661.M)6.1:651.613:661.677.37:561.524.36~74/77)"1972.06" WEATHER AND CIRCULATION OF JUNE 1972 A Month With Two Major Flood Disasters

• Main Authors: A. James, National Weather Service, Suitland Md
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1972
• Subjects: Baffin Island; Greenland; Baffin; Iceland; Newfoundland; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.395.3939; http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/mwr/100/mwr-100-09-0692.pdf

The midlatitude zonal westerlies continued to be stronger than normal during June, as they have for most of the year so far. As during the previous month (Dickson 1972), the 700-mb flow was not strong over the United States, but was anomalously strong over the oceans, where deep Aleutian and Icelandic Lows were observed with stronger than normal midocean ridges (figs. 1, 2). The gradient over the north Atlantic was especially remarkable, as 700-mb heights mere 118 m above normal east of Newfoundland but 115 m below normal between Scotland and Iceland. The peak 700-mb mean wind speed was 19 m/s, which is 12 m/s above normal at that location just southeast of the tip of Greenland (fig. 4). The mean polar Low persisted with greater than normal vigor near Baffin Island. The height anomaly change from May to June (fig. 3) showed a relative strengthening of the westerly gradient over northern portions of the two oceans. This was accomplished by the building of the subtropical ridges into midlatitudes while the normal early summer weakening of the Aleutian and Icelandic Lows failed to occur (cf. fig. 1 with fig. 1 of Dickson 1972). FIGURE 1.-Mean 700-mh contours in dekameters (darn) for June 1972.