Hi Philippe,

The longest heat waves on record in Albany based on consecutive 90 F days occurred between 27 August and 5 September 1953 (10 days) and 1973 (9 days). 
These earlier heat wave events are striking similar to each other and to the current flow pattern.

I am attaching mean and anomaly maps 500 hPa height, 850 hPa temperature, and SLP for both events. 
Please post them to the class home page so that mean and anomaly maps appear together for a given variable. 
Also, please post the accompanying text.

The CPC Oceanic Nino Index (ONI; http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyears.shtml) 
shows that a moderate El Nino event was underway in Aug-Sep 1953, but a strong La Nina was underway in Aug-Sep 1973 
following the strong El Nino of 1972-1973. The NOAA/ESRL Multivariate ENSO Index (MEI; http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/index.html) 
is consistent with the CPC ONI in showing El Nino conditions in Aug-Sep 1953 and La Nina conditions in Aug-Sep 1973. So, we probably can’t 
“blame” ENSO for these two late season heat waves. As for the MJO, I am not aware of any reliable indices prior to the satellite era and the 
first OLR measurements in 1974 (which became more reliable in 1979). Am I missing anything?

To assess the current mean and anomaly flow patterns for comparison, 
please include a link to Kyle Griffin’s Global Forecasting Map page (http://www.atmos.albany.edu/student/kgriffin/maps/)

For scaling purposes, if we have an extended late summer heat wave every, say, 25 years this works out in round numbers to be:

4 times every 100 years
40 times every 1000 years
400 times every 10,000 years
4,000 times every 100,000 years
40,000 times every 1,000,000 years

Thanks.

Lance