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A cold front pushing into our region and low pressure to our northwest is likely to trigger rainfall, especially tonight (sorry, high school football fans). This morning's rainfall projection map from the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center forecasts the potential for about an inch of rain in much Western Virginia through the next 48 hours. It might be just warm enough (in the 60s) that this front could even trigger a few thunderstorms with gusty winds. The first half of Saturday look soggy too, but rain should start to diminish into the afternoon. This front is more of a "cool" front than a cold one, as temperatures will cool down but not return to last week's frosty/mountain snow flurry levels, at least for the next few days.

Atlantic hurricane season officially stretches until the end of November, but the 2009 season seems to be over with barely a whimper.

The most interesting event of the hurricane season on this blog was our discussion on Aug. 22 (and several days following) about proposals to use cold water upwelling to potentially weaken hurricanes. Reporter Duncan Adams wrote an extensive article about such a proposal from The Egg Factory of Roanoke, filed in 2000.

The discussion veered from whether such a thing was technically possible to more a philosophical question of whether man should even attempt such a thing. The critics of the plan generally said that man shouldn't tamper with nature and that doing so could produce unintended bad consequences. Supporters favored the hurricane-weakening proposals as a way to save lives and property damage along our coasts.

A few of you asked me to give some thoughts, which I have in the Weather Journal column that appears Friday in The Roanoke Times.

In the extended entry below (click "Read More" in full blog mode) is a short e-mail interview I had with George Hagerman, the Egg Factory's hurricane expert, about the group's proposal and its potential effects.

Feel free to weigh in again with your own comments, whether you have before or not -- just keep it civil.

Read more »

Highs of 76 in Blacksburg and 78 in Roanoke today were well above the normal highs for this date of 63 and 67, respectively, but fell well short of the record highs of 81 for Blacksburg (1993) and 85 for Roanoke (1941). The morning started just a degree above freezing in Blacksburg at 33, 3 degrees below normal, and 42 at Roanoke, only a degree below normal.

We'll see a similar day on Thursday, though the cool start will be about 5 to 8 degrees warmer. 

Rain and cooler weather is still on the way over the weekend. A little further down the road, the 6-to-10 day and 8-to-14 day temperature maps from the Climate Prediction Center depict the progessive pattern well, as cooler than normal temperatures expand from the central U.S. early next week toward the east later in the week.

The timing isn't working out for anyone who wants a sunny Saturday. The sunny, warm days will be today and Thursday ... highs in the 70s, generally, after cool mornings in the 40s. Rain returns Friday with the next cold front -- Friday night football games look to be soggy right now -- lingering into Saturday.  Sunday, though, looks like it may be nice with sunshine, highs in the 60s, lows in the 40s, perhaps a good leaf-peeping day.

This is a result of the progressive jet stream pattern we are in, with fronts pushed across the nation about every 5 days, a few days warmup followed by a cooldown. For now, it appears most of the fronts are of Pacific origin, so no extreme chill-outs are likely. Very typical October weather.

Roanoke's official low fell to at least 32 briefly this morning, the first freezing temperature of the 2009-10 cool season. Blacksburg dropped to 28 and was below freezing for a few hours, indicating a growing season-ending freeze probably occurred in many areas away from the Roanoke metro area, especially north and west of Roanoke. While the first hard freeze of the year renders additional freeze warnings unnecessary, similar temperatures on Tuesday morning have led the National Weather Service in Blacksburg to issue a frost advisory for the second consecutive morning for locations from the Roanoke Valley south and east.

My storm chasing friend Dave Carroll from Blacksburg ventured up to Salt Pond Mountain today (the one Mountain Lake is on). He saw a little light snow blowing around and shot some photos of a wintry mountaintop with an autumn background. My favorite, small at the left and a larger version linked here, showns rime ice on tree branches above 4,100 feet at Bald Knob. Riming is caused by winds blowing water droplets in clouds against surfaces that are below freezing. He also shot a picture of a wee bit of snow accumulation on some of the many ferns found on the mountain. Just a hint of winter today at the area's highest elevations.

Some more snow showers are possible overnight at elevations generally above 3,000 feet (possibly creeping lower into the New River Valley after midnight) as another disturbance swings through. The bigger issue will be the potential for a growing season-ending freeze tonight and again Sunday night over most of Southwest Virginia west and north of Roanoke. Freeze warnings and watches have been issued.

A late week snow set records for earliest on record in some states to our northeast.

This taste of winter won't last long, as gradually warming temperatures are expected through the coming week.

A couple of months ago I opened the blog up to comments about a Roanoke inventor's proposal to weaken hurricanes (a subject I will return to in Weather Journal as promised a long time ago, hopefully next week).  Well, here's a different weather intervention idea: The mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov, wants to seed clouds so that they dump some of their snow outside of the city instead of burying the Russian capital. He is finding lots of opposition from environmentalists, political opponents and people who live in surrounding areas that would -- if his questionable plan works -- get much more snow.

"If it works out, Chicago or Montreal may want to copy us," said Kremlin-linked lawmaker Sergei Markov, according to the Associated Press article.

So how does that idea grab you?

As I write about in today's Weather Journal column, there was no big shock when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (the overseeing agency for the National Weather Service) came out with its winter forecast, which is basically a textbook moderate El Nino pattern. Cooler than normal temperatures with near average precipitation would be the general call for our region, based on the forecast maps.

I alluded to Accuweather.com's forecasts, which are widely followed, and are very robust on snow potential for the East this winter (as they seem to be quite frequently). I've added a few links to those forecasts and one other from some private forecasters ... all thanks to my readers who have watched out for these forecasts while I've been otherwise occupied this fall.

It does remind me a bit of the buildup to a football season ... it's all hype until the pigskin flies and the pads pop. And when it comes to snow, there have been several losing seasons recently for the region's winter fans.

Accuweather.com compares its forecast to that released by NOAA on Thursday ... overall pretty similar.

Accuweather.com's Joe Bastardi going very big on winter snow forecasts for our region.

Accuweather.com's Henry Margusity calls for 46 inches of snow for Roanoke in big Eastern winter

Forecasters Hunter Outten and Mike Petro with a similar snowy outlook (Adobe Acrobat required)

Meanwhile, winter fans, enjoy any snowflakes you see tonight or Saturday, especially in higher elevations and locations west of I-81. I will get to my thoughts ... and introduce the Winter 2009-10 snowfall prediction contest ... in two weeks.

It appears that the airport at Hot Springs ... actually located on top of the mountain above the town and The Homestead ... experienced some snow overnight and this morning as temperatures dipped to just above freezing.

And it appears almost certain that Roanoke will set an Oct. 15 record for coldest high temperature today ... and it likely won't even be close. We're sitting at 44 this morning, the record is 53 set in 1978 and 2002, and rain is moving in as cold air damming maintains its hold on our region.

A cold front and some more snowflakes, especially in the higher elevations, are still on the way for Friday and Saturday. If a flake or two blows into the Roanoke Valley, Saturday morning would be the best bet.

Chilly, rainy weather is on tap through the weekend with some cold-air damming from the northeast and an active jet stream bringing a series of storms across the country that will sling Gulf of Mexico moisture over that cooler air. The rain is on the Roanoke Valley's doorstep right now (click here for local National Weather Service radar).

And by the weekend, higher elevations in our area may see the first snowflakes of the season behind a cold front.

It will take me a few days to get back in the weather groove. I've barely paid attention during the past week after being in Arkansas for my dad's funeral.

I do know that, suddenly, the weather pattern looks a lot like winter.