Heat, Heat, Heat-- Humidity.
Summer weather-- loving enjoying the outdoors and pool, but the heat has been horrible. Watching ANOTHER nasty heat wave next week. (July 20-26 or so) Enjoy this weekend as it's about as close to perfect as you can get for summer with temps in the low to mid 80's.
Tropical Weather-- Haven't had much yet (Minor Arlene event)-- should be a fairly active season that starts to kick up in the next 2-3 weeks.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Monday, May 30, 2011
SevereWx and my lack of updates-and some information on the Joplin Tornado.
To say that this has been an active severe weather season is quite an under statement. We've had our share of pretty intense storms that have impacted our forecasting region. My person favorite was the April 28th morning thunderstorm that dropped the visibility to .5 of a mile at the Greater Lynchburg airport. Comparing that to snow-- visibility of .5 of a mile is moderate snow, approaching about an inch an hour. Terms like "It's really coming down" would be used. In rain-- that's some heavy rain. We actually had a .2 of a mile visibility reported at 7:46 AM and between 7:40 and 7:52 we had .62 of an inch of rain. That's about the heaviest rain I've seen. One six minute cycle had .37 inches of rain-- WOW!
My updates have been LOW and it's by choice. This is just a hobby to me-- BY choice, I don't let myself jump in feet first to the severe weather. If I ranked my favorite events-- WINTER event wins, Hurricanes are second and Severe comes last. If I allowed myself, I could get obsess with ALL three, but I willfully limit myself. I've got a career, children and just general life balance that is needed. My spider senses do start tingling so to speak when these events are incoming, but my sanity and just being a normal guy supersedes in this case. I'd always throw out a facebook status if there was a critical storm heading our way, but the day to day
For those who don't have him-- Sean Sublett is on facebook and twitter and is incredible at updating for our region. If you've not "liked" his fan page-- please do and he will take care of you with various updates during severe weather.
Many of you know I am a counselor by trade-- did that type of work 10 years. Part of me is an extremely sensitive and caring person who hates to see human suffering. I truly have to watch myself when they show those videos of the just horrible carnage after these huge events as it BUGS the life out of me to not be able to do much. Yeah, I give to the various charities but it hardly seems enough.
I've been very involved in an online weather community currently hosted at www.AmericanWx.com. The short story is a ton of us found each other on some message boards in the mid to late 90's-- and finally found people who were not meteorologist but just LOVED weather. We built a community-- found REAL mets to help enhance the place and it's been a fun 10 years. One of the "regulars" lived in Joplin, MO only three blocks away from that intense E5 from last week. His pre and post reports were pretty amazing and I thought it be worthwhile to share this information.
The Joplin Tornado was a one in a million perfect event-- the SPC only had a 10% risk of severe storms and pretty much everything that could have gone wrong did. I hate seeing the 142 ish death total. So sad and so many tragic stories. This example just shows WHY we need to heed warnings, even if it seems like we are crying wolf. This guys is an extreme weather hobbyiest like me and literally was only spared because the tornado was 2-3 blocks away.
I'm cutting and pasting this-
I'm guessing about 3-4 minutes.
I think at 5:17 I posted:
"nd there go the sirens, rotation just NW of here."
This was the 2nd couplet that formed and not the actual tornado I don't think. This slid off to the north of me.
Then at 5:27 I posted:
"Pitch black out, couplet nearly on me... Joplin, MO"
This was the 3rd storm and the EF-5 couplet. It rolled through about 3-4 minutes later.
After I posted that, I looked out west and saw the lowering, then a minute or two after that, heard the rumbling.
This is his FULL report-- I've highlighted a couple lines that hit me.
This is what happened as I recall, the times may not be correct and it may not have completely happened how I remember it but this is what I remember.
We are very used to having tornado warnings in Joplin. The first instinct of everyone when they hear the sirens is to jump up and go outside to look for it. It's even a joke between me and Wx24/7 that once a storm enters the Springfield, MO CWA, they'll issue a tornado warning for it no matter what.
I had been watching the HRRR all day Sunday and noticed that it was developing the very last storm over Joplin but nothing farther south. The helicity was scary crazy as well. I thought this was maybe just the HRRR being flaky until I saw the storm develop over SE KS and that it was moving SE.
As I remember it, the parent supercell storm that was moving SE developed a couple of cells on it's SE flank. These storms went from nothing but a small blip to a storm in no time at all. SPC mesoanalysis was showing 5000 SBCAPE. The last images other than the base velocity radar image I saw was the LFC and LCL heights, which were both 1000 over the area.
As the storm(s) were approaching, I heard constant rolling thunder and lightning. I was watching the initial parent thunderstorm, it had an unorganized couplet that was rather large and I knew it would slide by to the north of me. South of that another couplet was developing on the second 'blip' that had popped up. This one was farther south than the first one but was still really unorganized. I do believe both were Tornado warned. Then suddenly a third storm rapidly developed south of those storms. A tornado warning was issued that included my area and this was the one that produced the EF-5 tornado.
I watched it go from no couplet to a big bad couplet right over me in a few minutes time. ( I just watched the video that someone posted that showed how quickly the tornado went from a tiny rope to a giant wedge and I'm amazed.) I looked out the window to the west and the sky was pretty much black, much like how it looks when the sun is out at your location and there is a storm some distance away, only this time it was cloudy where I was. There was a lowering which was probably part of the wall cloud. It gave off an orangish hazy looking color against the black sky.
The sirens had gone off for one of the other tornado warnings, but they were going off a second time as well. It was then I heard what I thought was rolling thunder... only this time, it got louder.
I listened to the 'rolling thunder' get louder for about 5-10 seconds before I figured out that it was not thunder. I looked up towards where I heard the sound but the blinds were closed so I decided to get in the only safe place which was a closet before the windows blew out. As I turned on the closet light, the power went out. I was not really expecting an EF-5.
The sound was exactly like what people compare it to, a freight train. It was a loud roar, and it had times where it almost sounded like it was growling. The winds at my location were from the north or northwest because I heard the air screaming in the garage door, it screamed, stopped for a few seconds and then screamed again and then the roar got quieter so I ventured out.
I looked into the rest of the house, no glass was broken, still had a roof. I decided to look outside and despite having a tree that fell over, most of the other trees had no damage. It was now foggy outside though. I suspected I had just been through a weak tornado. I went outside and the first thing I smelled when I made it outside was the smell of freshly cut trees or wood. I thought that was a little strange, but some neighbors trees had broken limbs so I thought it was from that. The roof had sustained some shingle damage but nothing really bad.
I came back inside and I turned on a battery powered radio because I was wondering what the rest of the city was getting or what had happened. It was then I heard that St. Johns Hospital was 'leveled' (a report that was not true, although it had sustained heavy heavy damage) I was like.. whoa that's not good. It was around that time I heard firetruck/ambulance sirens. These sirens ran constantly from right after the tornado hit at around 5:40 PM until midnight. They also ran a lot the next day as well.
I walked down the street, heading to a local church (there's almost one on every corner here) and as I was walking that way I noticed a lot of trees down on just the next street over and the damage got progressively worse. People's privacy fences had been blown over, but this was nothing compared to what I saw at the end of the block. As I was walking I noticed the smell of natural gas, it was getting stronger the closer I got but I just had to see. People had gathered at the church and it was being used as some sort of local triage for minor wounds. I kept walking until I reached the end of the block where everything to the south of the intersection was completely destroyed. I looked down the street and I didn't recognize anything and I realized I could see much much much farther than I could before. There was a lot of traffic that was being turned around there and I didn't want to interfere with the rescue work so I returned home.
I didn't sleep at all that Sunday night, the days events, the sounds, the thought that I wouldn't probably be here if the tornado was three blocks closer, all kept replaying in my head.
I let the rescuers do their thing on Monday and it was raining most of the day, but on early Tuesday morning I walked back down there and down the street, and I almost could not stop walking. The entire area looked like it was a landfill. On my left, a car parked in the 'garage' where a house would have been but there was nothing but a slab there, water gushing out of a broken pipe. On my right, another street where nothing remained but debris. On the ground there was a St. Johns medical braclet from someone.
The streets were marked by wooden signs spray painted with the street name. "Haz gas" was spray painted on a piece of wood next to a gas meter, a couple of guys pulled up to check and make sure it wasn't leaking still, it was, so one of them phoned the gas company to tell them it was still leaking. The area was being patrolled by police officers from the area and from other counties farther away, but they didn't have much to say or didn't care I was there since I was on foot.
I ran into a lady who had brought a camera to take pictures, she told me that the State trooper guarding the intersection had told her that she had to see it. Pictures don't really do it justice though, people who have lived here all their lives and are older get turned around and lost because there are no landmarks left since it's just a debris field. It reminds me of a post-apocalyptic scene but it's real life. I probably stood on top of a hill and looked around for about 10 minutes at everything, how far I could see and where the damage path was then I returned home.
I decided to go back on Wednesday, a little later in the day and people had returned home to gather their belongings. There were also rescue workers in the area. I saw a boy and his mother on the 2nd floor of what was left on their house. It didn't exactly look safe but nobody was stopping them. I heard an insurance adjustor talking to a woman as another woman was inside what was left of their house attempting to gather whatever she could. I saw a man sitting on the back deck of his destroyed home, holding his head. I looked down and saw that a bunch of debris had gathered down in this valley and rescue workers were there, attempting to find people in the rubble I guess. I felt uneasy and like I was intruding so I decided to return home.
The last trip down there I took this evening. They had cleared away a bunch of the trees. The road was blocked by electrical trucks working on the electric lines, I didn't want to disturb them so I just watched them work. There was other equipment working in the area as well, no heavy equipment yet though.
There have been helicopters flying over for the past few days. I don't remember what day it was but there were 2 blackhawk copters from the National Guard on patrol then two A-10's flew by. I'm not really sure what the point of all that was and most of my neighbors thought it was really stupid. It's not like they were protecting us from some kind of invasion or something.
The city has a curfew in the disaster zone from 9 PM to 6 AM. You can't be in the area after that time. They were going to make people get permits, but they ran out of permits pretty quickly so they just decided to beef up security.
This radio station did a great job of locating people and getting information out there:
Link of the tornado blowing up in a SHORT time.
Various stories about individuals- the HS story is the worst.
Doctor's first hand account.
Dedicated thread at AmericanWX.com about the Joplin tornado.
Pretty amazing events-- always love reading the goodness of man despite horrible circumstances.
My updates have been LOW and it's by choice. This is just a hobby to me-- BY choice, I don't let myself jump in feet first to the severe weather. If I ranked my favorite events-- WINTER event wins, Hurricanes are second and Severe comes last. If I allowed myself, I could get obsess with ALL three, but I willfully limit myself. I've got a career, children and just general life balance that is needed. My spider senses do start tingling so to speak when these events are incoming, but my sanity and just being a normal guy supersedes in this case. I'd always throw out a facebook status if there was a critical storm heading our way, but the day to day
For those who don't have him-- Sean Sublett is on facebook and twitter and is incredible at updating for our region. If you've not "liked" his fan page-- please do and he will take care of you with various updates during severe weather.
Many of you know I am a counselor by trade-- did that type of work 10 years. Part of me is an extremely sensitive and caring person who hates to see human suffering. I truly have to watch myself when they show those videos of the just horrible carnage after these huge events as it BUGS the life out of me to not be able to do much. Yeah, I give to the various charities but it hardly seems enough.
I've been very involved in an online weather community currently hosted at www.AmericanWx.com. The short story is a ton of us found each other on some message boards in the mid to late 90's-- and finally found people who were not meteorologist but just LOVED weather. We built a community-- found REAL mets to help enhance the place and it's been a fun 10 years. One of the "regulars" lived in Joplin, MO only three blocks away from that intense E5 from last week. His pre and post reports were pretty amazing and I thought it be worthwhile to share this information.
The Joplin Tornado was a one in a million perfect event-- the SPC only had a 10% risk of severe storms and pretty much everything that could have gone wrong did. I hate seeing the 142 ish death total. So sad and so many tragic stories. This example just shows WHY we need to heed warnings, even if it seems like we are crying wolf. This guys is an extreme weather hobbyiest like me and literally was only spared because the tornado was 2-3 blocks away.
I'm cutting and pasting this-
I'm guessing about 3-4 minutes.
I think at 5:17 I posted:
"nd there go the sirens, rotation just NW of here."
This was the 2nd couplet that formed and not the actual tornado I don't think. This slid off to the north of me.
Then at 5:27 I posted:
"Pitch black out, couplet nearly on me... Joplin, MO"
This was the 3rd storm and the EF-5 couplet. It rolled through about 3-4 minutes later.
After I posted that, I looked out west and saw the lowering, then a minute or two after that, heard the rumbling.
This is his FULL report-- I've highlighted a couple lines that hit me.
This is what happened as I recall, the times may not be correct and it may not have completely happened how I remember it but this is what I remember.
We are very used to having tornado warnings in Joplin. The first instinct of everyone when they hear the sirens is to jump up and go outside to look for it. It's even a joke between me and Wx24/7 that once a storm enters the Springfield, MO CWA, they'll issue a tornado warning for it no matter what.
I had been watching the HRRR all day Sunday and noticed that it was developing the very last storm over Joplin but nothing farther south. The helicity was scary crazy as well. I thought this was maybe just the HRRR being flaky until I saw the storm develop over SE KS and that it was moving SE.
As I remember it, the parent supercell storm that was moving SE developed a couple of cells on it's SE flank. These storms went from nothing but a small blip to a storm in no time at all. SPC mesoanalysis was showing 5000 SBCAPE. The last images other than the base velocity radar image I saw was the LFC and LCL heights, which were both 1000 over the area.
As the storm(s) were approaching, I heard constant rolling thunder and lightning. I was watching the initial parent thunderstorm, it had an unorganized couplet that was rather large and I knew it would slide by to the north of me. South of that another couplet was developing on the second 'blip' that had popped up. This one was farther south than the first one but was still really unorganized. I do believe both were Tornado warned. Then suddenly a third storm rapidly developed south of those storms. A tornado warning was issued that included my area and this was the one that produced the EF-5 tornado.
I watched it go from no couplet to a big bad couplet right over me in a few minutes time. ( I just watched the video that someone posted that showed how quickly the tornado went from a tiny rope to a giant wedge and I'm amazed.) I looked out the window to the west and the sky was pretty much black, much like how it looks when the sun is out at your location and there is a storm some distance away, only this time it was cloudy where I was. There was a lowering which was probably part of the wall cloud. It gave off an orangish hazy looking color against the black sky.
The sirens had gone off for one of the other tornado warnings, but they were going off a second time as well. It was then I heard what I thought was rolling thunder... only this time, it got louder.
I listened to the 'rolling thunder' get louder for about 5-10 seconds before I figured out that it was not thunder. I looked up towards where I heard the sound but the blinds were closed so I decided to get in the only safe place which was a closet before the windows blew out. As I turned on the closet light, the power went out. I was not really expecting an EF-5.
The sound was exactly like what people compare it to, a freight train. It was a loud roar, and it had times where it almost sounded like it was growling. The winds at my location were from the north or northwest because I heard the air screaming in the garage door, it screamed, stopped for a few seconds and then screamed again and then the roar got quieter so I ventured out.
I looked into the rest of the house, no glass was broken, still had a roof. I decided to look outside and despite having a tree that fell over, most of the other trees had no damage. It was now foggy outside though. I suspected I had just been through a weak tornado. I went outside and the first thing I smelled when I made it outside was the smell of freshly cut trees or wood. I thought that was a little strange, but some neighbors trees had broken limbs so I thought it was from that. The roof had sustained some shingle damage but nothing really bad.
I came back inside and I turned on a battery powered radio because I was wondering what the rest of the city was getting or what had happened. It was then I heard that St. Johns Hospital was 'leveled' (a report that was not true, although it had sustained heavy heavy damage) I was like.. whoa that's not good. It was around that time I heard firetruck/ambulance sirens. These sirens ran constantly from right after the tornado hit at around 5:40 PM until midnight. They also ran a lot the next day as well.
I walked down the street, heading to a local church (there's almost one on every corner here) and as I was walking that way I noticed a lot of trees down on just the next street over and the damage got progressively worse. People's privacy fences had been blown over, but this was nothing compared to what I saw at the end of the block. As I was walking I noticed the smell of natural gas, it was getting stronger the closer I got but I just had to see. People had gathered at the church and it was being used as some sort of local triage for minor wounds. I kept walking until I reached the end of the block where everything to the south of the intersection was completely destroyed. I looked down the street and I didn't recognize anything and I realized I could see much much much farther than I could before. There was a lot of traffic that was being turned around there and I didn't want to interfere with the rescue work so I returned home.
I didn't sleep at all that Sunday night, the days events, the sounds, the thought that I wouldn't probably be here if the tornado was three blocks closer, all kept replaying in my head.
I let the rescuers do their thing on Monday and it was raining most of the day, but on early Tuesday morning I walked back down there and down the street, and I almost could not stop walking. The entire area looked like it was a landfill. On my left, a car parked in the 'garage' where a house would have been but there was nothing but a slab there, water gushing out of a broken pipe. On my right, another street where nothing remained but debris. On the ground there was a St. Johns medical braclet from someone.
The streets were marked by wooden signs spray painted with the street name. "Haz gas" was spray painted on a piece of wood next to a gas meter, a couple of guys pulled up to check and make sure it wasn't leaking still, it was, so one of them phoned the gas company to tell them it was still leaking. The area was being patrolled by police officers from the area and from other counties farther away, but they didn't have much to say or didn't care I was there since I was on foot.
I ran into a lady who had brought a camera to take pictures, she told me that the State trooper guarding the intersection had told her that she had to see it. Pictures don't really do it justice though, people who have lived here all their lives and are older get turned around and lost because there are no landmarks left since it's just a debris field. It reminds me of a post-apocalyptic scene but it's real life. I probably stood on top of a hill and looked around for about 10 minutes at everything, how far I could see and where the damage path was then I returned home.
I decided to go back on Wednesday, a little later in the day and people had returned home to gather their belongings. There were also rescue workers in the area. I saw a boy and his mother on the 2nd floor of what was left on their house. It didn't exactly look safe but nobody was stopping them. I heard an insurance adjustor talking to a woman as another woman was inside what was left of their house attempting to gather whatever she could. I saw a man sitting on the back deck of his destroyed home, holding his head. I looked down and saw that a bunch of debris had gathered down in this valley and rescue workers were there, attempting to find people in the rubble I guess. I felt uneasy and like I was intruding so I decided to return home.
The last trip down there I took this evening. They had cleared away a bunch of the trees. The road was blocked by electrical trucks working on the electric lines, I didn't want to disturb them so I just watched them work. There was other equipment working in the area as well, no heavy equipment yet though.
There have been helicopters flying over for the past few days. I don't remember what day it was but there were 2 blackhawk copters from the National Guard on patrol then two A-10's flew by. I'm not really sure what the point of all that was and most of my neighbors thought it was really stupid. It's not like they were protecting us from some kind of invasion or something.
The city has a curfew in the disaster zone from 9 PM to 6 AM. You can't be in the area after that time. They were going to make people get permits, but they ran out of permits pretty quickly so they just decided to beef up security.
This radio station did a great job of locating people and getting information out there:
Link of the tornado blowing up in a SHORT time.
Various stories about individuals- the HS story is the worst.
Doctor's first hand account.
Dedicated thread at AmericanWX.com about the Joplin tornado.
Pretty amazing events-- always love reading the goodness of man despite horrible circumstances.
Monday, April 4, 2011
Nice morning, Windy this afternoon, Severe tonight
Highs will be 75-82 region wide today with winds developing out of S and SW -- Gusts could be in excess of 40 MPH.
A strong cold front hits our region later tonight-- later this afternoon and early evening, MS, TN and AL are under the gun. Don't be shocked to see reports of tornadoes down that region. The risks here are more confined to strong gusty winds, heavy rain and MAYBE small hail.
Keep tuned to media outlets for updates on the severe weather. If you don't have LynchburgWx on twitter-- add please and I update on Facebook directly- Keith D. Huffman
A strong cold front hits our region later tonight-- later this afternoon and early evening, MS, TN and AL are under the gun. Don't be shocked to see reports of tornadoes down that region. The risks here are more confined to strong gusty winds, heavy rain and MAYBE small hail.
Keep tuned to media outlets for updates on the severe weather. If you don't have LynchburgWx on twitter-- add please and I update on Facebook directly- Keith D. Huffman
Friday, April 1, 2011
Winter Round Up---April 1
With the early spring snow threats-- I decided to wait until all those threats were over to "grade" my winter outlook.
Tough winter both on a long range outlook and even on the day to day storms and weather, the model data struggled on many levels.
Here are my initial thoughts in the 10-11 winter outlook.
http://lynchburgweather.blogspot.com/2010/11/winter-outlook-2010-2011.html?showComment=1288745159520#c437893978100543863
Season Temp. Forecast +2 above normal
Seasonal Snowfall 5-10 inches. (Same forecast for Roanoke, 2-5 inches for the Danville region) 10-18 inches for the NRV, The favored high elevations of the region get more due to upslope snows. (AKA, places were I doubt anyone will read this blog)
Higher risk for ice storms.
Monthly breakdown temp bread down
December-
-2 below normal
January
Starts cooler but ends warm
+2
February
+4
Still has some colder outbreaks, just warmer overall.
As the long wave pattern adjusts to spring, March will feature rapid swings (Normal to some extent in March) with a higher then normal risk of wintry weather.
** My over all ideas were NOT horrible, just the cold was MUCH more extreme, Region wide, we were 7-9 degrees below normal for the month of December. The shift in the overall pattern became apparent in late December but the switch wasn't made until Mid January and the cold lingered most of the month and we averaged between -1 and -3 degrees below normal compared to my predicted +2. February did flip to a mild pattern and we were region wide 2-4 degrees above normal.
Snowfall-- Very good in the NRV to ROA to LYH. Danville went well over and this is due to the pretty the extreme cold first half of winter favored souther and eastern regions. Virginia Beach has 2x the snow totals of Lynchburg and Roanoke. While this is a crap shoot on some level, I believe this is a level of skill involved and the past two years I don't think you'd find a better local "snow guess" for the winter.
Over all grade?? I'd take a B maybe a C+. The biggest stink was the EXTREME cold in December. Reality is no one in the right mind would forecast a -8 departure for a month. BUT, Had I gone extreme of let's say .-4 I'd be much happier with my forecast.
The Good-- Snowfall totals, overall idea of first cold half-- focused on December, DRY all winter and Warm February.
The BAD-- Not cold enough in December, Pattern change was much more delayed in January. I thought we'd lose the cold mid month and it was more like late month. The overall numbers are REALLY skewed by the extreme cold in December. The two week delay in the flip really hurt my January numbers. Really no major ice threats. This goes hand in hand with the COLD being TOO cold and suppressed the overall pattern the first six weeks of winter. I'd have to check, but I can't recall only 1 day of freezing rain-- December 16th.
I'm going to skip a "spring" outlook but will release a summer outlook by the middle of May. This will included an Atlantic Hurricane Outlook, Regional Temps including estimates of days over 90 (When it gets really nasty hot) and dig into if this drought condition gets better or worse.
Tough winter both on a long range outlook and even on the day to day storms and weather, the model data struggled on many levels.
Here are my initial thoughts in the 10-11 winter outlook.
http://lynchburgweather.blogspot.com/2010/11/winter-outlook-2010-2011.html?showComment=1288745159520#c437893978100543863
Season Temp. Forecast +2 above normal
Seasonal Snowfall 5-10 inches. (Same forecast for Roanoke, 2-5 inches for the Danville region) 10-18 inches for the NRV, The favored high elevations of the region get more due to upslope snows. (AKA, places were I doubt anyone will read this blog)
Higher risk for ice storms.
Monthly breakdown temp bread down
December-
-2 below normal
January
Starts cooler but ends warm
+2
February
+4
Still has some colder outbreaks, just warmer overall.
As the long wave pattern adjusts to spring, March will feature rapid swings (Normal to some extent in March) with a higher then normal risk of wintry weather.
** My over all ideas were NOT horrible, just the cold was MUCH more extreme, Region wide, we were 7-9 degrees below normal for the month of December. The shift in the overall pattern became apparent in late December but the switch wasn't made until Mid January and the cold lingered most of the month and we averaged between -1 and -3 degrees below normal compared to my predicted +2. February did flip to a mild pattern and we were region wide 2-4 degrees above normal.
Snowfall-- Very good in the NRV to ROA to LYH. Danville went well over and this is due to the pretty the extreme cold first half of winter favored souther and eastern regions. Virginia Beach has 2x the snow totals of Lynchburg and Roanoke. While this is a crap shoot on some level, I believe this is a level of skill involved and the past two years I don't think you'd find a better local "snow guess" for the winter.
Over all grade?? I'd take a B maybe a C+. The biggest stink was the EXTREME cold in December. Reality is no one in the right mind would forecast a -8 departure for a month. BUT, Had I gone extreme of let's say .-4 I'd be much happier with my forecast.
The Good-- Snowfall totals, overall idea of first cold half-- focused on December, DRY all winter and Warm February.
The BAD-- Not cold enough in December, Pattern change was much more delayed in January. I thought we'd lose the cold mid month and it was more like late month. The overall numbers are REALLY skewed by the extreme cold in December. The two week delay in the flip really hurt my January numbers. Really no major ice threats. This goes hand in hand with the COLD being TOO cold and suppressed the overall pattern the first six weeks of winter. I'd have to check, but I can't recall only 1 day of freezing rain-- December 16th.
I'm going to skip a "spring" outlook but will release a summer outlook by the middle of May. This will included an Atlantic Hurricane Outlook, Regional Temps including estimates of days over 90 (When it gets really nasty hot) and dig into if this drought condition gets better or worse.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
2 more threats of rain, with maybe a little snow.
We are in the middle of a crazy late season cold and stormy spell-- despite our system not really panning out as anticipated, the threat THIS late was rather interesting.
A system approaches our area tomorrow-- and again the higher elevations to our NW may get some accumulating snows. From Lexington north, up 81 East to the Blue Ridge may get a coating to maybe 3 inches at the highest elevations.
Again, the parade of storms continues and storm approaches Thursday-- same set up, different day where the highest elevations have a shot to get some accumulations.
Both tomorrow and Thursday have the chance to see some flakes flying in the Lynchburg/Roanoke region-- but I anticipate the best shot for more then flakes in the air will be at the highest elevations.
I won't be shocked if either tomorrow or Thursday has a heavy enough burst to coat the ground with snow for a short time in ROA/LGB.
I won't be shocked if either tomorrow or Thursday has a heavy enough burst to coat the ground with snow for a short time in ROA/LGB.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Ya Blew it boy, you REALLY blew it (Krammer voice)
Last nights event was HORRIBLE-- Yeah, I stayed low but NOT low enough. Around 11 PM I figured we were toast-- hoped that band I mentioned via twitter would pull it through for an inch, but between the warm ground and the sleet mix it just wasn't in the cards. Models are guidance and nothing more. One key issue that modeling doesn't handle well is convection on the south end of storms. There were severe storms riding through AL and GA and in effect that robbed our moisture for our snow event. This is a well researched area and they can even gauge the impact based on the angle and trajectory of the storms, but it's hard to quantify the impact on total precipitation.
What killed us was a lack of total precipitation and nothing more. Most models ran between .40 and .75 or so consistently-- and at 10 PM the NAM which lead the way dropped us back to .20. We ended up with .16 total liquid.
There is another system dropping to our south late tonight. With our luck-- watch this one do BETTER compared to our system of failure last night. Galax to Danville has the best shot to see a coating to an inch.
If anything more important develops-- I'll update. Stormy and cool pattern for the next week or so with 2-3 shots of rain .
What killed us was a lack of total precipitation and nothing more. Most models ran between .40 and .75 or so consistently-- and at 10 PM the NAM which lead the way dropped us back to .20. We ended up with .16 total liquid.
There is another system dropping to our south late tonight. With our luck-- watch this one do BETTER compared to our system of failure last night. Galax to Danville has the best shot to see a coating to an inch.
If anything more important develops-- I'll update. Stormy and cool pattern for the next week or so with 2-3 shots of rain .
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Final thoughts before game time---
Fun late season event-- and basically harmless. There's not really going to be enough snow falling to cause any tree damage, the warm ground will melt this fast and despite me being certain it is going to snow, the total amount is a little uncertain.
I'm not wavering on my call of 1-3 for MOST areas. Blacksburg, Roanoke and Lynchburg along 460 will be in this zone. The southern line of an inch will be south of Gretna line, heading SW towards Max Meadows. The best accumulations will fall above 2k feet NORTH of Roanoke- Lexington, Stauton, Waynesboro, Hot Springs-- those locations. These places could see 4-6 inches.
In the lower elevations the inhibiting factor for 4-5 inches is a little mix and very wet snow the first couple hours.
The models have varied enough that there certainly is a chance we get a little more or less then anticipated-- and of course I will update as needed.
I'm not wavering on my call of 1-3 for MOST areas. Blacksburg, Roanoke and Lynchburg along 460 will be in this zone. The southern line of an inch will be south of Gretna line, heading SW towards Max Meadows. The best accumulations will fall above 2k feet NORTH of Roanoke- Lexington, Stauton, Waynesboro, Hot Springs-- those locations. These places could see 4-6 inches.
In the lower elevations the inhibiting factor for 4-5 inches is a little mix and very wet snow the first couple hours.
The models have varied enough that there certainly is a chance we get a little more or less then anticipated-- and of course I will update as needed.
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