2008.03.21
Potential winter storm looking wide right this time
After an entire season of nearly every potential winter storm going wide left -- west of us, that is -- the Sunday-Monday low is looking to go wide right -- off the coast. For signficant snow to occur in late March or April, conditions usually have to be almost textbook perfect ... dense cold air forced southward by strong high pressure in Canada, a lot of moisture falling through that cold air, and a favorable time of day away from the most intense sunlight helps. This one is probably going to fall well short on the moisture end with the low heading off the coast. Some light snow or rain is possible Monday, but barring an unexpected shift in the pattern, probably no late-March snowstorm.
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I'm not surprised. This winter, like last year, was terribly disappointing. I'm hoping we get the more usualy winter next year, because with the lack of moisture we've had the past 2 winters, it hasn't helped going into the summer with rainfall deficits. Even with the wet weather, the ground around my house is still extremely dry just a few inches below the surface because we've been about a foot or so low going back to last year. Maybe the overall pattern will break at some point so we can make up some more.
Comment by Other John — March 21, 2008 @ 11:44 am
Do you know the average frost date around Christiansburg? I've had a terrible time finding anything specific.
Comment by planting in c-burg — March 22, 2008 @ 4:02 pm
I've typically gone with May 9th. I remember seeing it somewhere, but I can't remember where exactly. The past several years have been fairly true to that date though, with a couple frosts the first week of May, but not afterward. Any time I've wanted to plant sooner than that, we've gotten a frost.
Comment by Other John — March 22, 2008 @ 11:18 pm
I found an average 1971-2000 last freeze date of May 5 listed for Pulaski using the NOWData feature at this web site:
http://www.weather.gov/climate/xmacis.php?wfo=rnk
Don't know why Blacksburg or Christiansburg isn't in that list.
Comment by Kevin Myatt — March 24, 2008 @ 11:29 pm