Will the wedge break Sunday in SW Virginia? If it does, sticky 80s; if not , damp 70s
Low clouds have overspread the region as easterly winds bank moisture against our mountains. The result will be cloudy, foggy, drizzly weather to start Sunday, especially along the Blue Ridge and eastward. The question that hangs over Sunday is how long this “wedge” of cooler air will hold firm. In northern Virginia and vicinity, it held all day on Saturday — all three airports that serve Washington D.C. (Dulles, Reagan National and BWI) set record cool highs for July 21 in the upper 60s and lower 70s. With high pressure moving offshore to the northeast and a cold front washing out to the south, each allowing a more southerly wind by afternoon, it’s likely the wedge will break and the sun will burn through to lift our mercury into the 80s, as shown at left. But these cool-air damming situations sometimes have a way of hanging on a little longer than expected. If that happens, it might have a hard time making 80.
Whatever the outcome of Sunday’s temperature, the week ahead on the whole looks like more of what we’ve seen lately. We’ll be east of the main core of the heat dome, so triple-digit highs are not likely, but we’re cut off from cool, dry air from Canada, too. So expect lots of highs in the 80s to lower 90s, scattered afternoon showers and storms, and perhaps on a day or two a little bit more organized storminess with disturbances and/or fronts diving southeastward out of the Upper Midwest around the heat dome high. No general rains are expected, but a few slivers of dry Southwest Virginia soil will get a brief soaking most days this week.
July 22, 2012 - 12:24 AM
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No wedge in Blacksburg yesterday, 87 degrees and it took a long time to get any cool down last night. Love to see some rain
The rain last night slipped along the north side of the Doppler and missed us. Up here on the ridge, we are locked in with the fog this morning and temps in the upper 60′s.
The wedge did not arrive in our region until about sunset. Clouds at night hold temperatures UP. Roanoke was 87 on Saturday also. To clarify — on Saturday, the wedge was primarily I-64 north and east. It spread farther west and south in the evening.
HokieTrax said it rained good in Blacksburg last night. Didn’t happen in your part of town, Matt?
Morning satellite shows the wedge solid from the Blue Ridge eastward, with more breaks to the west. I suspect it will break in the New River Valley and westward by late morning to midday. May take a little longer farther east.
http://blogs.roanoke.com/weatherjournal/files/2012/07/satelliteSunAM0722.jpg
Not only did Roanoke and Blacksburg have the same high of 87 on Saturday, the 2 sites got almost the same amount of rain in their official rain gauges: .10 at NWS-Blacksburg, .08 at Roanoke Regional Airport. But in both cases, the amounts were spotty, so not everybody in Roanoke and Blacksburg got those amounts — some got more, many got less.
Long live The Wedge. Still in the upper 60s here with occasional cool NE breeze. I’ll take the low clouds and occasional mist. Looking forward to the days when we get that as a high temp with sun and blue skies.
Kevin, what is on average the hottest day of the year? Are we on the downward side yet? Thanks
Cloudy and cool still here in SW ROA County. Why can’t it be like this tomorrow? Rhetorical question.
Talk about an evil trick! I leave central Virginia for the cooler weather of the NRV and temperatures flip flop. Mid 80s here in the NRV yesterday and never got out of 70s yesterday back in central Virginia! Seems like the same for today, but low and behold when I go back to work Monday its suppose to be mid 90s in central Virginia. LOL I can’t win for losing! Oh well me and my Cuz are 4 under and 2 shots back, maybe we can at least win member guest. This weather is starting to drive me crazy!!!
Looks like wedge is breaking. Warm and sticky.
No wedge here in the Chapel. Dark clouds all around as we came out of Church but no rain. Radar is starting to pop all around with storms. Heavy rain fell around Bristol and Johnson City yesterday and flood advisories were up for several East TN counties. We were dry beyond some sprinkles. Looks like today’s storms will be isolated but with very heavy rains when they come. We are sitting closer to that old front. Temps here now are 82.
A most interesting read. Kinda validates some of the posts prior to Aug./Sept. being the worst of the season.No mention of an Oct. storm.
http://www.villagecraftsmen.com/news072112.htm
Yesterday DFW 107..
Breaks record held since 1939..when it was 105F.
If we can’t get the wedge back as far as Michael’s area, there’s not much chance it’ll get to Dallas — sorry Joe!
Joe, is that 107 a daily record, or an alltime record? I would be shocked if DFW had never been above 105 before ….
Jared, you are definitely “snakebit” this summer!! I hope that you won the golf tournament. It sounds like you are a scratch golfer.
It was a daily record, Doug. Dallas’ all-time record is 113 from June 1980.
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/fwd/?n=dfwann
I got 035″ of rain from the a while ago. Here’s a link to an interesting drought comparison map. Be sure to compare 2012 to 1934.
http://tinyurl.com/d7x866p
I am thinking I am going to have to go over to the Doppler radar and give it a kick – it seems to be deflecting any incoming rain either to the north or to the south and it keeps missing me.
wdbrand – glad to see you back on the blog – missed reading your comments. Enjoyed the article about the Hurricane House. As many times as I have been to OI, I never heard about the house though I remember seeing it.
Thanks Kevin for that clarification..
The best news is we-ve only had 8 days
of 100 plus..
At least the High has meandered and wobbled a bit.
If not for that it would have been a killer.
We-ve actually had thunder in the area..one cell was popping
off this AM around 5 on my way to work..drifted SW away from us.
No cap on the atmosphere…VCTS put in the fcst around noon..
hasnt happened.
But ….we-re saving gas!!!
Pittsburgh ,Charlottesville and Dulles
this morning started off the morning
with reduced visibilities
as the wedge Kevin talked about created fog,
Didnt take long to burn it off.
Come on September and 400ft thick columns of
soul saving soup.
Because of the wedge holding a little later, Roanoke’s high of 84 today was 3 degrees cooler than Blacksburg’s 87.
If no wedge…ill take a tropical sledge…
Even if its only a 10 percent chance.
Heavy rain squalls over Miami Sunday morning…
Some folks saw other parts of Florida than their original
itenerary called for.
TROPICAL WEATHER OUTLOOK
NWS NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL
800 PM EDT SUN JUL 22 2012
FOR THE NORTH ATLANTIC…CARIBBEAN SEA AND THE GULF OF MEXICO…
A WEAK LOW PRESSURE TROUGH OVER THE FLORIDA PENINSULA IS PRODUCING
DISORGANIZED CLOUDINESS…SHOWERS…AND THUNDERSTORMS OVER PORTIONS
OF THE NORTHWEST BAHAMAS…CENTRAL AND SOUTH FLORIDA…AND THE
NORTHEASTERN GULF OF MEXICO. ALTHOUGH CONDITIONS ARE NOT FAVORABLE
FOR SIGNIFICANT DEVELOPMENT…THIS DISTURBANCE COULD PRODUCE
LOCALLY HEAVY RAINS OVER PORTIONS OF FLORIDA DURING THE DAY OR SO
AS IT MOVES NORTHWESTWARD AT AROUND 15 MPH. THIS SYSTEM HAS A LOW
CHANCE…10 PERCENT…OF BECOMING A TROPICAL CYCLONE DURING THE
NEXT 48 HOURS.
ELSEWHERE…TROPICAL CYCLONE FORMATION IS NOT EXPECTED DURING THE
NEXT 48 HOURS.
$$
FORECASTER PASCH/BLAKE
Well those storms that I mentioned popping up definitely popped on the Chapel this afternoon. I am not sure that Blackwell Chapel didn’t have a microburst. My gauge had 1.20″ of rain, my neighbor 1/2 mile away had 3″ and my other neighbor 2 miles away had 0″. I saw 4 trees either split apart or all the way down and numerous limbs scattered around. The creek crossed the road and my corn crop hit the ground. How I wish I could send some of this your way. By the way, I spent 3 hours shop vacing my neighbors basement that flooded. That was my Sunday PM, how was yours?
Teaching scuba class this afternoon in Galax and had to run from several storms as the afternoon progressed. Got 2 confined water dives in and getting to take these kids to quarry this week. Hope these storms hold off.
I feel like I imagined the rain that my area got Saturday night (SW BBurg) but I dumped .80 out of my rain gauge this morning. It rained a good hour or so last night so the ‘drizzle’ forecast confused me. My son who lives in North BBurg said it only rained briefly where he was.
Just saw that Phoenix had a “haboob”. No audio on the video linked below.
http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_t3#/video/us/2012/07/23/vo-az-dust-storm.ktvk