UPDATE 11:30 PM, 3/23: Weekend rain, front won’t end warmth, but may stop daily challenges to record books
UPDATE 11:30 PM, 3/23: Intermittent showers are expected to continue overnight across Southwest Virginia. There is potential for strong to severe storms on a Saturday once the sun pops out when a dry slot moves in during the day, destabilizing the atmosphere with surface warming that could lead to strong updrafts into colder air aloft with the approaching upper-level low. Exactly where the biggest severe weather threat will be in the Carolinas or Virginia remains a bit in question. I’ll plan to put up a new blog post sometime Saturday morning taking a closer look at any severe threat. END UPDATAE
UPDATE 5:20 PM: Roanoke has its first record high of the March hot spell: 84 degrees, breaking the previous March 23 record of 82 set in 2007. Today’s high is 24 degrees above normal and equivalent to normal nigh for June 15. Blacksburg reached 78 for the second day in a row, again 2 degrees short of a record. Showers and thunderstorms are building in from the southwest. Some heavy rain and gusty winds are possible with the stronger storms this evening. Latest National Weather Service-Blacksburg radar linked here. END UPDATE
High temperatures on Thursday of 80 in Roanoke and 78 in Blacksburg missed daily records for March 22 by 4 and 2 degrees, respectively. Friday provides one more opportunity, with forecast highs expected to be near Roanoke’s March 23 record of 82 degrees set in 2007 and Blacksburg’s record of 80 set in 1968. It may come as a little surprise that, as warm as it’s been on a consistent basis, Roanoke has yet to set a single daily record high temperature this month (unlike Blacksburg, that has set 3). Friday may be the final chance for several days.
We finally have something significant weatherwise to talk about other than potential record highs and scattered afternoon summerlike pop-up storms. The massive, slow-moving upper-low in the central U.S. — the big pinwheel on the satellite photograph at left — will begin to affect our weather by Friday evening. Its broad circulation will pull Gulf of Mexico moisture in several bands, and that will lead to intermittent periods of rain and some thunderstorms Friday night and Saturday, lingering into Sunday as the cold upper-air pool at the center of the upper-low drifts overhead. It’s always difficult to forecast the timing and amounts of rainfall in a broad upper low like this, but national forecasters are projecting widespread amounts near an inch through Sunday evening as slow-moving bands of thick moisture are pulled through the region, with southeasterly upslope flow perhaps enhancing lift and squeezing out a little more. The upper level low may also pull through some dry slots. It is possible one of these dry slots arrives Saturday afternoon, allowing sunshine to destabilize the atmosphere a little. Warmth, plus moisture, plus strong winds aloft created by the upper-level low may lead to a risk of severe storms with hail, strong winds and possibly even isolated tornadoes on Saturday, especially east of the Blue Ridge. At this time, a major outbreak of severe weather is NOT expected, but anytime it’s been as warm as it has been, there tends to be a heightened risk of stronger storms.
The air following a front this low will pull through by Sunday is greatly modified, with no real Arctic connection, so temperatures will only retreat slightly behind the front. We may have a day or two — Sunday/Monday, perhaps — with highs in the 60s (low 70s if there is lots of sun) and lows in the 40s. The overall warm pattern rebounds next week, at least back to widespread 70s for highs (maybe not as many low 80s), but there continues to be signs the core of it shifts westward and weakens somewhat, as shown in the 8 to 14-day temperature map from the Climate Prediction Center, with much of Virginia out of the red colors in the white “equal chances” of warm, cold and normal area. A westward shift in the mean position of the upper-level high-pressure ridge that has caused the prolonged March warmth may also allow its clockwise circulation to pull down a few more cold fronts into the East in the long-range — the Northeast U.S. may be at particular risk for a post-warmth freeze, with no clear indication yet that level of cold air would extend as far south as Southwest Virginia. For now, there is no signal of a major pattern change, just some indications that summer-in-March will undergo some gradual erosion and won’t hold on at full strength throughout April.
March 22, 2012 - 8:43 PM
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Ive been looking at weather products for a lot of years..
I don’t think in 30 years that ive ever seen
a March system so large and with what I at least think
has a few tropical characteristics.
This system when it departed NCTRL Tx the last few days
brought up a tropical skyprint to us…I love these.
Makes me think im in Fla or Galveston.
Gulf clouds are so very different..
Not necessarily so tall..but individual, dark grey bottoms,
and pure white gleaming tops.
I’m sure it has pulled in a lot of tropical/subtropical moisture — but there is no doubting its cold core aloft, not the warm core of a tropical system.
Mayor of Dopplerville:
Guess who you share a birthday with? Yep yours truly. Happy B-day Carol
Just got back in from London & Lisbon and came home to 5″ of pollen on my Highlander. Not as bad in Europa.
Was looking at the 12 & 18Z GFS and it had a Blizzard for April Fool’s Day for the Northeast. Now that would be funny if it happened.
What Joe is looking at:
http://www.goes.noaa.gov/browse.html
I wonder if the Mother Ship from Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind is in the middle of the circulation caught in the black hole.
They had a blizzard for Halloween, why not one for April Fools Day.
I think New England has a good chance of seeing some hard-freeze conditions the next couple of weeks. It’s not unusual at all, but will be a bigger deal with the preceding heat wave having greened and bloomed things far more than normal. Whether that cold can work farther south toward us remains a bit doubtful, but I think we do get off the flirting-with-80s kick after Friday (and maybe 1 or 2 more random days next week).
Yes Kevin…certainly cold core..
thats why I said a “FEW” tropical characteristics.
The slow movement of this system is astounding so far.
Owing mostly to your east coast robust and stubborn High pressure.
With this long-lasting High in place, it would probably be August 2007 all over again if the calendar read late July or August.
I noted on Twitter that the deviation from normal today for the high temperatures (20 degrees for Roanoke, 23 degrees for Blacksburg) would have made it 107 at Roanoke and 105 at Blacksburg were it late July. Neither site has ever had temperatures that hot.
Portland, Oregon’s weather service office had its LATEST measurable snowfall on record today, and much of western Oregon’s lower elevations saw its heaviest snow for so late in the season today. A tale of two coasts …
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/total_forecast/getprod.php?wfo=pqr&sid=PQR&pil=RER
Also one for you Joe I just saw on Twitter: Dallas has had nearly 14 inches of rain so far in 2012, compared with only 2 1/2 inches a year ago.
Part of north Texas and much of central and eastern Oklahoma has been pulled ENTIRELY out of what was once severe or worse drought:
http://www.droughtmonitor.unl.edu/
Kevin, I’m definitely going to listen to you on the radio today! I’ll make it an effort to listen every week from here on out. I’ve been forgetting but I made sure I have a huge note over the radio that reads,”4:30 PM ON FRIDAYS LISTEN TO KEVIN MYATT ON WVTF!!!!!!” Can’t wait to finally listen! Should be good! Hope it’s a great show…but I know it will be because of course, you are Kevin Myatt!
Yes Kevin..
Just a few miles (Texas relative)..to the west
its still dry.
We-ve been in the sweet spot to dig out a little
gulf wind pattern. Along with some lifting from the west as well.
Im just hoping the soil moisture will dampen for a while
the scorching 95 plus days. Fate and moisture..please bring us clouds.
http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/03/21/3827118/north-texas-weather.html
Just a follow up from my question on the last thread. Do you feel like there is no connection between moon phases and temperature? I’ve heard a lot of folks say that a full moon or new moon brings cooler temperatures hence my question about an Easter freeze. Maybe this is one of those weather sayings that has a grain of truth to it?
Strawberryman: A couple of scientific studies have actually pointed to temperatures being a few hundredths of a degree WARMER during full-moon phases — because of the moon reflecting a little bit more solar radiation back to Earth. The difference was miniscule, however, and would not make a noticeable difference in climate patterns.
Just looking quickly: Virginia’s most severe cold on record around January 21, 1985, occurred during a new moon, not a full moon. The killing freezes of April 7-10, 2007, occurred near a last quarter moon, a few days after the full moon. The coldest period of our most recent much-below-normal-cold month, December 2010, around Dec. 9-15, occurred around a first-quarter moon. Those are obviously not nearly enough examples to be a rigorous scientific study to establish or debunk any possible patterns linking lunar phases to cold weather, but it does show that cold weather can peak during any part of the lunar cycle.
For any one interested, here’s a handy reference to look past or future lunar phases for many centuries:
http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/phase/phasecat.html
I can only imagine how many millions of people would have some form of severe weather (from severe storms to heavy snow) if that thing sitting over the midwest occurred in the middle of a cold January.
Severe weather risk for Saturday is worth noting due to possibility of sunshine warming things up during dry slot ahead of arrival of colder air aloft with upper-level low, and strong winds aloft. Storm Prediction Center right now is favoring South Carolina for greatest risk of supercell thunderstorms developing, but it’s a risk worth monitoring here as well.
I would not rule out some frost on Tuesday morning, at least in outlying, rural areas. That may end up a genuinely cold morning (i.e. near normal for mid-late March) with lows in the 30s over much of the region (probably low-mid 40s in Roanoke Valley) if radiational cooling is maximized. It’s NOT likely to be a widespread killing freeze for things that have bloomed or greened early.
Happy Birthday Captain Quags (a day late). I wondered where you were as I have missed reading your posts.
Kevin: I was at the Clearbrook Wal-Mart at 8:30 this morning and saw what appeared to be a storm chasing vehicle in the the parking lot: dark green mini van, decals on the side and back, numerous instruments (windspeed, etc.) and a yellow flashing light on top. I don’t know who it was as I didn’t get close enough to read the decals, but I found it to be a bit worrisome. Are the storms rolling into this area for tonight and tomorrow expected to be that bad?
I know what vehicle you’re talking about, I know the person who drives it, and I saw it at Clearbrook Walmat this morning too. It’s a local guy, he drives it all year. You’d just as likely see it in the coldest day of winter as on a stormy day.
That’s a relief. Is it your van?
Not my van. I don’t draw attention to myself when I’m storm chasing on my own.
I was in Salina KS a few years ago having dinner when a group of vehichles from Vortex 2 showed up for a quick meal. Very cool to see on one hand, but on the other gives you an ominous feeling…kinda like when the TWC sends Jim Cantore or Mike Seidell to your community for a LIVE report!!
I’ve definitely seen the “chaser circus” in the Plains while helping lead the VT storm chasers the past 7 years. We’re due to make 2 trips this coming May and June.
Paul: That was the same feeling I had this morning. Kevin, you are right about that van; it does draw attention. With the weather we have been having lately, I would imagine the storm chasers are getting an early start this year.
My article from 2 years ago about the “chaser circus” in the Plains (I wish it had all the photos linked that appeared in the paper):
http://www.roanoke.com/extra/wb/263237
It would be very doubtful that lots of storm chasers would gather in our area even if the tornado risk appeared to be unusually high. The terrain and trees make classic storm chasing very difficult. Chasers might be drawn to the Piedmont in a higher-end severe threat, but other than the ones that live in this part of the country, most stay in the central US for chasing.
Bing’s homepage picture today is a lightning bolt as today is apparently World Meteorology Day!
For some weather humor…a link to the TWC “Jim Cantore takes a Vacation” commercial…
http://tv.blogs.starnewsonline.com/13591/watch-the-jim-cantore-commercial-filmed-at-wrightsville-beach/
Kevin: Your article is great! What a fun read. While I know storm chasers go midwest for chase season, I got a close up view of the tornado that hit Roanoke a few years back. From my living room picture window we watched it come from the Brambleton area over my neighbor’s roof toward our house. As we were running to a hallway the tornado hit a tree on the hillside, just behind my house. The tree split and a large portion of it landed across my back fence (taking out three sections of fence) and into my yard. I have never seen trees move like that before and I absolutely never want to be that close to a tornado again. I will enjoy reading about your chases though and wish you lots of luck this spring.
Paul: The commercial is fun and there is something to be said for that. I like their sense of humor.
D. Carol!!!!! Did I dream this or did you comment you might need to get in some wood after this front moves thru? I looked and looked and can’t find it. Anywho, I got enough in to get a night and morning burn going, and will keep it that way til a longer term cold spell is forecast. I would appreciate you letting me know cause that will big me to no end. Cooling off with the cloud cover but, it was a picture perfect day. I even rode around the yard and showed the mower what it had to look forward to for the next 7 months or so. It was like my woodstove. Not happy. One’s being laid, the other one hired.
I just got home, and today I actually burned off a few calories, because I had the less strenuous of my two walking routes. I have another computer page window open on the “Daily Climate Data” page, and it is on this month for Roanoke, of course. Through March 12th, just 11 days ago, this month was almost exactly 4 degrees warmer than normal {actually a tiny bit less}. Four of the first 12 days had been cooler than normal, and one day, 3-5-12, had actually been a cold one, 8 degrees below normal, with a morning low of 30 at RRA. It is not easy for a month to maintain a variance either colder or warmer than normal of 4 degrees after only 12 days. If the remaining days averaged out to be normal, then they will “eat away” at that bigger variance and knock the monthly variance to under two degrees. More in separate comment …….
Roanoke was 83 at 4 p.m., so the March 23 record high has officially fallen.
Should have read, one’s being fired, one’s being hired. Oh well.
So to maintain a 4-degree warmer than normal variance, the average of the remaining 19 days have to average a +4 also. And to increase that variance, the remainder of the month has to be even warmer than +4. And to do it in a month like February, March, April, May or to a lesser extent June, when the normal highs and lows are increasing anyway, it REALLY requires insanity. And insanity is what we have been having. The month-to-date variance through yesterday, not even including today’s low 80s highs and a low about 59 or 58, is a …… gosh, can this be real?? …… +9.9!!!!! And tomorrow it will go into the double digits. I am quite sure that no month since January 2000 (at least) has been either 10 degrees warmer or colder than normal, and I don’t think any have reached even 9. The ten days between March 13th and yesterday have AVERAGED …… AVERAGED!!!! ….. A STUPENDOUS 17.5 DEGREES WARMER THAN NORMAL.
wd, you are PRICELESS!! LOL! How does an inanimate object (well, “inanimate” until a person starts it up) like a mower “get laid???” I was roaring with laughter. Thanks.
Even if it wasn’t the mower that was getting laid, but the woodstove. Another Griggsy senior moment. :>)
OK — let’s return to family friendly language — even if it was a senior moment. (Somehow I read right over the original, so that’s why I’ve let the commentary continue.)
By the way, I did not like the appearance of the regional radar a few minutes ago (I WANT rain tonight, by the way), so I have taken action. I just raised the chances of rain from probably 20 or 30% for my corner of SW Roanoke County to about 70%. I am watering the front yard for about 45 minutes. So if you live within 3 miles of me, and you want dry conditions this evening ….. be prepared. On the other hand, I cannot predict worth a dime, so that’s a key factor, too.
About an hour ago we had a wonderful thunderstorm that dropped “0.17″ inches of rain. It also cooled the air. I believe I saw 78 F at one time in the yard and it dropped to 68 F. I am happy for any rain we get. Radar looks like more is headed this way.
wdbrand – I am looking at Intellicast’s projected temps for next week and the evenings were showing low 40′s. I am thinking there may be some nights that I will want to get rid of the chill. We still have some wood inside so decided to not bring in anymore.
Kevin, my fault. I meant to type one’s being laid off, the other one hired. Simply changed it to ryme. You know I never cross the line on off color remarks. Hope nobody else took that wrong.
Does Margusuity theory sound crazy to everyone! He thinks the warm winter and current heat wave was caused by the debris field from the japanese tsunami. I find this kinda far out there, but i guess anything is possible.
Kevin, I’ve seen it before[ cloud ceiling] but can’t find it now. Reason being, I saw a bird that looked like it was just under the clouds and trying to go SE, but wasn’t making any headway. Switched to the NW and was going like a jet. Too high for a buzzard, so figger it was a hawk. Ole Seth W. could have answered it. Looked at least a mile up.
Maybe my watering is working. Of course it couldn’t be the simple fact that most of the weather forecasting outfits were predicting a good chance of showers/rain tonight anyway …. Radar shows a nice-looking blotch of mostly “yellow” rain moving through eastern Carroll County and hitting SW Floyd County. If we do get rain here in my neighborhood, based on many previous events approaching from the SSW or S, I feel confident that whatever we get here, it will be more than RRA.
Apologies to anyone who did not care for my comment at 5:10 PM. I have already communicated an apology to KM.
Jared, what on earth does Margusity say in detail (about the Japanese tsunami debris field)? Can anyone see it by simply clicking on Accuweather.com?
Jared: There is one and only one reason there has been a massive March heat wave in the eastern U.S., and that’s the fact that the air conditioning system at The Roanoke Times is entirely out of service for a planned upgrade.
It’s been 85-90 degrees in the 3rd floor newsroom this week, with rising heat trapped in a building without windows that can open.
Seriously — I’ll have to familiarize myself about this Japanese tsunami theory now that I’ve seen it mentioned about 3 times now. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
I found the article by going to Accuweather.com . The article was actually authored by Jillian MacMath, and she quoted Henry in two or three paragraphs near the bottom of the article. Henry claims that the debris field caused … or may have caused …. waters in the northern Pacific Ocean to become heated {That alone I find a big stretch, but maybe there is some truth to that), and that area is where most of the storms have been tracking for the most recent 90 days, blah, blah.
The following is my opinion, and I admit that the possibility that perhaps H.M. is on to something. However, his linking the debris field to a very cold western Alaska (he didn’t make that linkage, but clearly that is one of the several extreme weather occurrences this winter) and mild winter for a huge chunk of the eastern U.S.A. reminds me of another linkage.
Many years ago (1980s) somebody looked at sports results in the Washington, DC area. They found that if the Washington Redskins won their game on the Sunday immediately before the U.S. presidential election in early November, then either a Republican won the election, or a Democrat (I cannot remember which it was, but it was one or the other). I think if the ‘Skins won, then a Repub won the election. The linkage had a 100% failsafe record for several decades. And I may have the details wrong about whether it was the Redskins or some other sports result. But one certainly had absolutely nothing to do with the other, but the results coincided. That is what the Margusity explanation strikes me as.
One of the other Accuweather staffers had a theoretical explanation that made a whole lot more sense to me (and perhaps Kevin, Quags, and others?? ***** BY THE WAY, CAPTAIN GLEN QUAGMIRE: HAPPY BIRTHDAY WISHES!!!!). Senior Accuweather Meteorologist Alex Sosnowski “blamed” the very warm winter on the Arctic Oscillation, which kept the very coldest air mostly bottled up in very northern Canada. When the winter started mild, lakes (including the Great Lakes) and ponds remained unfrozen, the ground remained warmer, etc. etc.
I think that a lot of credit goes to one David Tolleris, who back in either early December or even in November discussed in length that the position of the polar vortex/vortices was(were) crucial. That unlike the previous two winters in which the polar vortices were predominantly on the Canadian side of the North Pole, that this time they were on the Asian and northern European side {with several smaller (in size, but still extremely strong) vortices west of Alaska}. Add in a NAO Oscillation that was so positive just about all winter that it more than “made up” for extended runs in the negative phase in winters 2009-10 and 2010-11, and most of North America was mild, especially in the eastern half.
Tolleris’ explanation, which was accessible here through a link in someone’s comment (Quag’s? Apologies if someone else provided it …), is one I would rank in the top ten of all things I have ever read here, possibly in the top 5. Kevin has most of the others.
Kevin, what was the first date that you poor folks at the ROA Times were without A.C.?? If it was March 12 or 13th ….. then I agree with you 100%!!!!!! LOL LOL :>)
Back to the immediate weather. The rainstorm over Floyd has lost a lot of its yellows, according to the pretty NEXRAD radar I have on, but there is a much bigger, brighter patch that is just reaching the “left field wall” of SW Virginia, I-77. Will they keep on truckin’? ……. Survey says yes.
Definitely think the Arctic Oscillation strong positive state early in winter (and remaining somewhat positive all but a few weeks through all of winter) and the North Atlantic Oscillation’s persistent positive state were the major reasons we saw the long mild/warm period. La Nina and northern Pacific factors also played a role, but I’m not buying the tsunami thing without a LOT of evidence of causation, not just a vague correlation.
Henry has the unfortunate duty of stirring up controversy to make folks keep coming back to Accuweather’s site.. thus the hype and innuendo that Frank Strait refers to (Frank is a straightforward southern guy, not a shhhhh.. northerner). I think a lot of Henry’s points are valid, but he has to add a bit of extremism and speculation to keep the bosses happy. Whoever heard of anything human influencing global weather! Except maybe Al Gore…
Good comment, Matt near SML. Very good. But about humans influencing the weather …. tsk, tsk. Kevin just told us all THE key reason why March is running at a gargantuan +10 degrees …… the A.C. being off! :>) :>) :>) And I particularly liked your comment about El Senor Gore.
Meanwhile, the I-77 barrier went to work YET AGAIN this evening. I just heard a few lonely raindrops outside my window, but I think they have stopped just as soon as they began. All the bright yellows and a few oranges (and I briefly spotted a tiny red along the BRP just SW of Fancy Gap, practically on the NC border) have changed to pale-looking greens in NE Floyd County. Boo.
Has anyone ever done a study about the effects of the I-77 corridor on systems approaching from the W and WSW? This is getting old ….
Hey, Indian Valley John, are you out there tonight? It sure looks like you have been getting some decent rains. And Johnny from that KHLX or whatever it is, in Hillsville, I bet you have a really nice rainfall total.
Bands of rain have skipped all around the Chapel today and tonight. It started raining a pretty good shower in Abingdon as we left this afternoon but by the time we got home, it was only a sprinkle. Hard storms forming in KY and TN moving this way. We are certainly not hurting for rain at this point.
Kevin, how early is the foilage and flowering happening this year? I estimate that we are about 3 weeks early to our usual.
6:20 A.M. Rain has taken a break, apparently just before I took dog out. 59*. Rainfall 0.4 inches here. According to IFLOWS figures about 6:00, that total is fairly typical of the ROA/Salem/Vinton and NE corner of Floyd County areas. Amounts generally a bit higher in Franklin.
That would be my estimate, too, Michael. Seems we’re seeing 2nd week of April kind of budding/greening/blooming now. Only an estimate, not a biologist of any type, so can’t say for sure. Seems to me to be about on par with the greening we saw in 2003 (cold, moderately snowy winter followed by warm March) and 2007 (mild, dry winter followed by very warm March). Those come to mind simply because of what happened after the March warm periods (heavy, wet snow on March 30, 2003, hard freezes in April 2007), so that’s not an observation of all the springs I’ve seen here.
You guys are so silly. The warm winter was directly correlated with the cash for clunkers deal. You take perfectly good cars that will last from 50-60 years and are paid for, trade them in for $20-30,000 cars that may last 5 years tops and puts the buyer way over their head fincancially, and far too much heat is generated. The 72 Ford pickup that was so tough you could drive it through a brick wall and it would still run, render the engine inoperable and stick it in a landfill forever, just the lunacy of the idea generates heat, but pile on all the disposable new cars that it will take to replace it, no wonder the arctic oscillation is out of whack.
Wasn’t cash for clunkers 4 years ago? (I kept my “clunker,” by the way — though not that old a clunker).
We may be veering a little too political here.
In any event, I’ve started a new blog post focusing on today’s severe weather threat.