2009.06.17
Another wet day ... but then hot and drier, briefly
A flash flood watch is in effect until 6 p.m. today as a warm front working slowly northward is the focus for yet more rain and thunderstorms. It used to seem like I was writing "drought" in every column and blog entry ... how much that has changed. That warm front will introduce a summery amospheric regime that could push us well into the 90s by Friday and Saturday under dry sunshine. Somehow I don't think many folks will complain about that.
A cold front pushing in late Saturday or early Sunday will end that spell, though, and could take us back into a pattern of frequent thunderstorms next week.
RSS feed 
Evening thunderstorms are one thing, but this day in and day out of gloom and rain is getting real tiresome around here. I am just looking for more than 1 day of nice weather before 4 days of rain start again...
Comment by Bill — June 17, 2009 @ 9:37 am
This is getting ridiculous. We might as well be living in Seattle.
Comment by Art Hill — June 17, 2009 @ 11:26 am
I'm heading to California next week to visit family. The sunshine and warmth will be a welcome break from this mess.
I'm glad we're out of the drought but dang. If we get any tropical systems this summer that just dump on us, we're going to be in big trouble considering how much rain we've had. Lot of cold fronts stalling out in our area and Kevin once wrote on this very blog that named storms, stalled fronts, and Southwest Virginia do NOT mix.
Comment by Brandon R. — June 17, 2009 @ 2:52 pm
Response to Art Hill: I just returned from a vacation that included being in Seattle for parts of 4 different days. They had no rain. In fact, Seattle is in a month-long drought. Last day on which Seattle received more than 0.01 inches of rain: MAY 19!!! Hey everybody, I know that continuous days of rain are depressing, but in my opinion it is much, much better situation than a drought. Everything is incredibly green. And have you folks noticed that the pollen counts have become nil? And air quality is terrific? Reservoirs full. Big trouble is that the Pacific may be on the verge of going into an El Nino phase, and that could bring very wet weather this autumn and next winter. I am sure that Kevin will keep all of us updated when and if that actually occurs (the El Nino, that is).
Comment by Doug Griggs — June 17, 2009 @ 10:18 pm
Since we have changed long term weather patterns, I wonder what is in store for this winter?
Comment by Nate — June 18, 2009 @ 8:20 am
Kevin,
It looks like there is a possibility of our area getting a pretty severe MCS event, maybe even a derecho over the next couple of days. This in my opinion is one of the best setups we have seen for these in a few years. The only caveat that I see is a downsloping westerly wind east of the mountains that may help to weaken the activity before it reached this area. To me the setup looks very similar to the the Appalachian Crossing Derecho events of August 9, 2000 which produced widespread wind damage in almost every county in our region. What are your views of the current setup in terms of a widespread severe weather outbreak for the region?
Comment by Andrew T — June 18, 2009 @ 9:32 am
Andrew: Just put up a new post briefly noting the severe weather threat. I would generally agree with you but would say give it another 24 hours to see what the pattern is, and every new day of storm activity in the central US is scrambling the overall atmospheric pattern. Would definitely say a MCS (mesoscale convective system, or generally speaking, a storm cluster) is likely to affect the area Friday night or Saturday, but it will be the fine details that determine if it goes ballistic. NWS-Blacksburg is using the word "derecho" as a possibility in its morning discussion.
Comment by Kevin Myatt — June 18, 2009 @ 9:46 am