Two pretty cool mornings lead into typically warm August week ahead; next weekend may bring autumn preview
When a heat wave shifts to the West Coast, that usually means that cooler air is slipping into the East. As high pressure shifts westward, its clockwise rotation spins in cooler air from Canada. The cold front that passed through early Saturday is the first of perhaps 2 or 3 installments of Canadian air we’ll see over the next 10 days or so. Sunday and Monday mornings will feature many lows in the 50s, with low 60s likely in the Roanoke Valley and eastward. Those numbers are not astounding for mid-August — Blacksburg’s normal low is 59, Roanoke’s is 
66 — but one or both will likely be the coolest mornings we’ve had in Southwest Virginia since the June 28 sudden flip (59 to 97 that day in Roanoke) from a remarkable summer cool snap to an intense record-setting heat wave.
While this week will feature many days with temperatures close to mid-August norms (normals for Blacksburg are a high of 82, low of 59 through August 20, while Roanoke shifts from 87 to 86 for a normal high today and from 66 to 65 for a normal low on Wednesday), a weather pattern similar to what we see with a mid-winter Arctic blast may be possible next weekend. This series of temperature anomaly maps off the 12Z Euro model (courtesy of Allen Huffman’s RaleighWx model page)– linked here for Wednesday, Friday and Sunday (insets from top to bottom in time order) — show the progression of a pocket of cooler than normal air (the blue colors) from near the polar region southward into the central U.S. and then spreading eastward. By Sunday, (lowest inset image on left) the darkest blue core of air is over West Virginia, showing temperatures about 9 degrees Celsius below normal (that’s about 16 degrees Fahrenheit) at the 850 millibar level — about a mile up. If that verified, it would certainly make for a downright chilly night or two at higher elevations like Mount Rogers/Grayson Highlands in Southwest Virginia and Snowshoe Mountain in West Virginia. That level of anomaly won’t necessarily translate to lower elevations at the same magnitude, but it would not be 
unreasonable to think temperatures 10 degrees below mid-August norms would be possible for a day or two by next weekend IF this model verifies. Air masses like this do tend to modify quickly, especially with us just barely past the peak solar period of the year, so the models may be overdoing this some. But the synoptic pattern to deliver a cool Canadian air mass like this appears to be in place, with many forecast models in broad agreement.
Though the correlation for our region is weakest in mid-summer, the North Atlantic Oscillation is spiking deeply negative, meaning high pressure is building over Greenland — this is obvious on the models. This can block the jet stream and force it to dip more southward over the Eastern U.S. (note that it was also somewhat negative during our heat wave period in early July — that played some role in keeping the Northeast from being devoured by the same heat wave that fried us, and that juxtaposition of air masses contributed to the June 29 derecho). Like I said, it’s a weak correlation as far south as we are, and by itself wouldn’t mean much in August — but combined with some other factors, it plays a role. The Arctic Oscillation is also sinking into negative territory, meaning cooler air typically held close to the North Pole will be allowed to circulate farther outward away from it. But perhaps most importantly, the Pacific-North Atlantic pattern is spiking quickly into a positive phase. This is the key mechanism, as the models show strong high pressure building through the western U.S. and ultimately into central and western 
Canada, which in turn dislodges this pool of cooler air southward and eastward. On the linked maps, the yellow/green areas of above-normal temperatures over the northern Rockies and western Canada, eventually spreading into the Northern Plains (days after that region gets some downright cold mornings) roughly correlates with the presence of this high-pressure system.
If this modeled pattern verifies to its fullest, we may see an early preview of autumn next weekend. Roanoke’s record low for Aug. 19, next Sunday, is 52, while Blacksburg’s record is 48 — those would be within the realm of possibility IF the pattern maximized its potential. But of course, projected patterns 7+ days out usually don’t maximize — just too many things that can vary it, a little or a lot. On the warmer end of possibilities, a couple of relatively cool mornings are ahead, at least compared to the muggy lows that have dominated this summer since June 29, and then we get several days of close-to-normal August temperatures, reinforced by a mid-week cold front, followed by what is likely to be at least a moderate cooldown next weekend. Not a bad week at all for those who didn’t care for early July.
August 11, 2012 - 10:51 PM
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I tweeted an early guess for coolest temperatures next 10 days: Roanoke 54, Blacksburg 49. I’m guessing that’s next Sunday AM.
Rise and shine, campers!! Gorgeous pre-dawn here, 62*. Saw a Perseid meteor at 5:35. No wind. Low humidity. I tried to find the temp at King’s Weather Station in the Wytheville area, but wunderground.com did not list it. Temps 52 at Raws Stony Fork in W-ville and in Bastian, but the lowest I saw was a 51 at a Christiansburg location. I wonder what the temp is now at Burkes Garden??
Have a great Sunday, everyone. And thanks for the compliment, KM, in your comment after 9 PM last night. I was “on the money??” How’d that happen??
54º on my thermometer this morning and it feels great.
It was 56 this morning up here on the ridge.
My guess for low temperature next weekend in my neck of the woods 48 degrees . As I said before this change is a pattern change that with brief warm ups will continue thru Fall. The hurricane threat for the east coast is essentially dead. The large question for winter is will this pattern hold on?
Hurricane threat dead? Wow..Isnt it a little
early for that? Whats that based on?
We-ve already had 6 named storms…
and the CPC has recently upped their forecast.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2012/08/2012-hurricane-season-now-forecast-above-normal/
Looking for an Ernesto…
A little news from out west
from todays Star-Telegram,,
http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/08/11/4174553/surviving-the-drought-in-jones.html
Can’t blow the whistle on hurricane season on August 12. Maybe on October 12.
Low of 60 this morning at Roanoke Regional — indeed, the coolest since June 28. Looks like VT airport bottomed out at 55 — NWS low for Blacksburg will probably be 53 or 54.
Nice low of 51 here in Woodlawn this morning. Felt great watching a few shooting stars last night!!
At the elevation Burkes Grdens at, I doubt if it got out of the 50′s and more than likey mid 50′s
Meant that it probably didn’t get lower than the fiftys.
Nice crisp to the air early this morning. Kevin, great write up as always. Can’t wait for fall ya’ll1!
Please note that I said east coast not gulf coast.the weather today so far is wonderful today 75 degrees at 2:30. Got to love it
Interesting find on Real Science.com
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/08/11/joe-bastardi-forecast-this-two-months-ago/
A few hot weeks was enough to make me appreciate cooler weather. But then a few clod months makes me appreciate hot weather. I guess I’m like most others where “the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence”.
Well, the guy with the hottest putter (on the front 9 only, of course …. more on that in another “non-weather” comment) was treated to a very cool morning at Draper Valley. First off, the TWC forecast that I mentioned yesterday got an “F.” Low was not 59, nor 57, nor even 54. 52 degrees, weather and golf fans. Dark blue pants and a mid-weight jacket were my dress code. I briefly saw my breath while hitting a shot in the shadows on the first hole. Absolutely gorgeous morning there, too. Clear, no wind for the first few holes.
Everywhere I looked (past Hidden Valley CC, then throughout Salem, then in every place that I could see a home and yard from I-81, and of course at the Draper subdivision) had greener grass than my neighbors and me who do not have underground sprinklers. If these dry conditions persist here, I may use another word instead of Brownsville.
Randy, Joe and Kevin do has a point. I’ve been blown off he beach on the outer banks too many times in late Sept./Oct. to call it over yet.
NON-WEATHER COMMENT. As I commented early in the golf season, I would try to limit comments about my golf trips to DVGC to weather and weather-related stuff as much as possible. But that I would digress when some noteworthy golf happened. Today something did.
1st hole: had a 17-foot downhill, left-to-right breaking putt for a birdie chance (easy par 5). On the first hole especially, I am thinking, “Just get it close, idiot.” BINGO. Drain-o. Birdie.
2nd hole. Had a 13-foot putt of terror from the back fringe to try to save par, a R-to-L break. Bingo! 30-feet of putts made on the first two holes!!
3rd hole. Left a 45-foot approach putt 8 feet short. I make 8-footers about 15% of the time. Bingo! Par 3.
4th hole, tough par 4. On in 3, but 21-feet past the cup. Just get it close, DG, and get out of there with a 5. Nope. BINGO! 21-foot par-saving putt (it broke about a foot left)!!
59 feet of putts on the first 4 holes. I was glad that I was playing alone because I was afraid that I was going to wake up (putting like that NEVER happens for me, so I must have been dreaming).
Then sank a 6-footer on the 6th and a 5-foot birdie on the 8th. Never missed anything under 6 feet on the front 9. 78 feet of putts on the front 9, which is a great total for 18 holes. Even par 36. Then reality set in. Made a mess of the back 9. 44. Dunked shots into the water on 11th and 18th. Only decent-sized putt on the back 9 was a 7-footer for par on the 14th.
Randy Oakey, I was just about to point that out to the doubters about your prediction. You still may end up being wrong, but I think I know how you might have arrived at your prediction. Not only the weather pattern for the upcoming weeks, but also the water temps just off the Atlantic beaches seem unusually cool to me for mid-August. TWC had them on for both the Atlantic and the Gulf shorelines. The Gulf is toasty (mid and upper 80s), but I think I saw a 71 for Virginia Beach!! And upper 60s north of there. Anyone have a lot of experience in that regard? I bet those water temps along the Atlantic were a lot higher in 2007, 2010, and 2011 by this time of year.
Doug the Comment Man has one more. In the top of the thread, Kevin posted links to the NAO, AO, and PNA. If those three had the current set-up in early or mid-winter, we would be incredibly cold and likely buried in snow. But the NAO has been very cruel to the cold-and-snow lovers since last October or so. Went positive and stayed there (or briefly neutral) all winter and even into April, but has never gotten really positive (and maybe not positive at all) since very early May!! In my decades-long review of the NAO (and AO) last winter, I noticed that the NAO could often stay either all-negative or all-positive for many months, but the number of times it remained in one stage for more than a year were relatively few. And I was only looking at monthly averages, not daily levels. The odds that NAO will remain consistently negative through to February are not good, but it could happen.
The incredibly pleasant summer of 2012 continues in the NRV. We still have not seen 90 degrees since July 8th, and doubtful we will see 90 degrees again this year. Not a bad summer at all.
Looks like I got home from the OBX just in time! I have heard reports of maybe a Hurricane Gordon hitting the Carolina coast next week. Kevin, do you have any information on this possibility?
The cooler waters up and down the coast are the result of a fairly steady pattern of SW winds. This causes what’s known as up-welling. Has dropped the water temp as much as 12* in a little over a day at some piers and Duck Research Center on the northern coast of NC. The gulf stream remains fairly constant tho. And hurricanes form and get their energy a long way from the coast and if strong enough, the coastal temps won’t stop them.
Whether a hurricane/tropical storm will hit the East Coast this fall, I have no idea, and neither does anyone else on this board. But August 12 is way too early to say the season is dead when the majority of East Coast-affecting hurricanes are late August through early October. Even if the pattern and/or water temperatures become generally unfavorable for an extended period of time, it just takes one storm in one favorable window to blow up the coast somewhere. WD is right that East Coast systems derive their energy from farther offshore and, especially north of OBX, usually run over cooler water and get carried ashore by atmospheric momentum rather than having hot waters to eat right up the coast.
Right now, there are only 2 small areas with a very small risk of development.
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/gtwo_atl.shtml
Mike: Glad you’re enjoying the summer in NRV, but if it ended now, it would be the 7th hottest summer on record at Blacksburg. But the developing cooler pattern may sap some decimals off the average (71.6). As with Roanoke, it’s been the overnight lows that have held the average up more than the afternoon highs.
An interesting tidbit. Take it anyway you like.
http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/remainder-of-atlantic-hurricane-season/68543
Kevin-it may be the 7th hottest summer in the NRV, but it sure as heck is still one of the coolest spots in the entire eastern United States. It’s all relative. I cannot call this a hot summer, when we have not touched 90 in over a month, and we have only had a handful of days where we even hit 90. I never take our beautiful micro-climate for granted, west of the Blue Ridge and above 2,000′, especially when the rest of the east coast/megalopolis is broiling.
As far as green grass goes, mine looks better than it has in several months. And growing and making the oil companies rich I might add.
This is only a feeling I have given the current pattern of cold fronts coming thru every couple of days. If the current pattern holds on any storm should be shunted out to sea. Fall in this pattern would be cool and wet. Winter on the other hand is to far out
Weather perspective is always relative, I suppose. None of our summers in Virginia are “hot” compared to Dallas … right, Joe?
Randy, I’m not 100 percent convinced yet this pattern will stick more than 2-3 weeks. Honestly, I lean a little toward there NOT being East Coast hurricanes this fall, but I can’t say the season is dead when historically the core of it hasn’t started.
wd and Kevin, thanks for sharing your knowledge about the water temps. It was very interesting and informative. Personally, I am rooting for any type of tropical storm or hurricane to come visit me and douse my yard. Seriously.
I remember during late August 1999 (our first summer at this house) my back yard was like concrete when we left town about a week before Labor Day. We flew back into Roanoke on the Sunday night of Labor Day weekend when the remnants of Hurricane Dennis were dumping lots of inches on SW Virginia. Once I got home about midnight, I checked the rain gauge, which measured up to 5 inches but actually held 6. It was nearly filled up. Our back yard was like a sponge. Another amazing early September transformation here, with last September being another one. I think parts of Salem got a lot more than I did, like ten inches or so.
Hey, Mike, to endorse what you said this afternoon, I treated myself to an early lunch at Ryan’s in the New River Mall. The weather was superb!! Low humidity, temp about 72/73. Got back in the car and drove back to the Roanoke Valley and even in Ironto the temp was up to 79, and 81 in Salem and ROA. A nice summer day here, but not nearly as delightful as Cburg/Blacksburg.
Channel 10 announced that three jurisdictions open schools tomorrow. OK, I figured, they should be in cooler climates like Bath County, Alleghany County, Botetourt County, Craig County, or anywhere in the New River Valley, so as to avoid having to extend the school year in June because of many snow days. ……. Nope!!! Henry County and the cities of Martinsville and Danville. HUH?!?! And those are three of the hottest spots within 100 miles of Roanoke in August!!! This is Twilight Zone news. Or have some or most of those counties I mentioned already opened? I think I heard that Carroll County already opened.
In Virginia, schools have to start Labor Day or later unless they gain a weather-related exemption connected to the number of snow days they’ve had over the past decade. I’m kinda surprised Henry County has this exemption — or perhaps they gained another one through legislation.
Roanoke city got legislation passed last year that it can piggyback on Roanoke County’s snow days for an early start. Problem is, Roanoke County may lose its exemption for next year unless the coming winter has a ton of snow days. Besides the not-much-snow 06-09 winters, Roanoke County has had bad timing for vacations, holidays and teacher work days the last 3 winters, missing many potential snow days. (Bad for keeping their exemption, that is). Roanoke County was already out for Christmas break when it snowed 18 inches on Dec. 18-19, 2009, (some other districts went into the next week, though those ended up being snow days) and December snow in 2010-11 was a Saturday clipper, a Thursday snow before a Friday off day and on Christmas Day. This past winter, the one snow happened on Sunday before Presidents Day.
Windows are open tonight and the crickets are sounding like a fall evening! I harvested crab apples this weekend – enough to make two jars of jelly, almost not worth the effort but fun to do.
Montgomery County schools start this Tuesday. Virginia Tech starts later this year, on August 27.
I’m ready for cooler weather and Virginia Tech FOOTBALL!
Kevin..how right u are..
Very relative.
This is the time of year I really want
to be back in Va. The heat wears me down
..even today in advance of an area of thunderstorms
it got to at least 105F..and of course the storms
fell apart and did the heat island split pretty well west of DFW..
Winds in the southern part of the county gusted to 66kts..
some significant limb damage and blown transformers.
But in Jan and Feb when u guys are getting bitter NW winds
many times we miss that action.
I miss braving the winters ..but I’d probably change my mind quickly..
Im not in my 20-s anymore.
Friday was 108F…it breaks the old record for Aug 10 of 107F..and yes..u may have guessed it,,,last year 2011.
It has been as hot as 88F in any month of the year in Dallas….100F or higher in 7 months out of the year.
4 distinct seasons will never be overrated!
And regarding the water temps off Va and tropical development..
My weather training in Fla for my job taught us
that sea temps needed to be 82F for tropical characteristic formation.
They may have edged that down some since then..that was early 80-s
But in any event..thats just to spawn them…
the Gulf Stream moving up the eastern seaboard would supply them
all the fuel they need.
The sea temps wouldnt have a lot of affect normally off Va coast.
And they can churn quite a while in quite cool water..
Watch them sometimes when they turn off the coast of New England..
They can stay quite potent as a weather system into Ireland and the British Isles.
Lake Effect snows is a great example of relative conditions…
Thundersnows off the lake..and a good bit of moisture lift
even if the water temp is in the mid 30-s if the air is extremely cold at the surface.
…Get ready…it wont be long till we are talking Alberta Clippers and lake effect.
I’ve been doing some woods work over in Burkes Garden and the difference in temperature there, verses over in Snow Creek in Franklin county has been stark. This past week as been very enjoyable, weather wise.
60 again for Roanoke this morning; looks like mid 50s for Blacksburg (airport was 57, that means NWS probably about 55).
Weekend cool front still on tap. Not surprisingly, Euro has modified it a bit — more of a -6C departure instead of -9 at its core. But it’s persistent into several days of next week.
We may squeak out a 90 or two this week in Roanoke, but extreme heat has been routed for the time being.
Kevin, can you put up an address at the paper to get your mail to you?
Kevin Myatt
Roanoke Times
201 W. Campbell Ave.
P.O. Box 2491
Roanoke, Va. 24010-2491
To all who commented about my snow hole woes and such: thanks!! It was good to hear all of your individual stories and circumstances as well.
Doppler Carol: that is amazing that you have such a view from your house (I’m assuming it is right on the Blue Ridge near Rte. 8??) that you can see storms near Farmville and Danville! The mountains truly are special.
Doug: I will agree with Kevin big time and say that your comment #27 on the last blog post was also on the money. Everything you said was perfectly put. And also, amazing golf play! I never get that hot with a putter. I’m good with judging long distances with putts and sinking short putts but the mid range breaking putts are tough for me. Good job though. I need to get out to the driving range again and practice cause I’ll be playing a lot this fall (or at least I hope to make time for it!).
Blacksburg Mike: so true! The NRV has been pleasant this summer aside from a few days in mid-June, the June 29-July 8 period, and one week in mid-July. Of course, the Ellett Valley is a few degrees warmer than Blacksburg itself but our micro-climate here has been nice for the most part this summer, not quite as cool as 2009 summer but sort of like it.
TinaB, Doppler Carol, Patricia, Doug, Kevin, and others who may care: the foggy morning count is now 10 of 13 days for me. Today was slightly foggy but I only am counting substantially foggy days.
Kevin, not weather related, except it was a great weekend to be outdoors, and it is one of the other topics you cover. Sunday I decided I would finally get out to see McAfee’s knob. As I pulled on my trusty old Vasque Skywalker hiking boots that I have had since possibly 1992 or so, I marveled at how well they had held up despite the mileage and time. Funny how most of my problems can be traced back to thinking gone wrong.
I was having a great time, impressed that this was no easy trail, and quite a variety of terrain for the first 2 miles. One of my first hiking partners always told me to respect the trail gods, pick up any trash you see whether it is yours or not, it might keep you in their favor. Shortly after going off the trail to pick up some trash, I noticed something was not quite right with my boot. My first glance revealed nothing, so I kept going. A few more flapping noises as I walked and I stopped again this time seeing that the tread was separating from my boot. I was just at 1 mile from McAfee’s knob when I had a wardrobe malfunction.
Fear not, no innocent bystanders were exposed to my flesh from the wardrobe malfunction (they were all guilty). I was too close to turn back, so I kept going. Once I reached the knob, I tied the laces around the bottom, and that held up for the 3.9 mile return trip. When I dumped the pocket full of trash I had picked up, I could not help but wonder if that was what really kept that boot together long enough to finish.
And about this pattern change: it is such good news to hear. I’m actually more excited for the people in the Midwest than our cooldown here. They deserve a break. I hope this translates into a snowy winter but it is too far out to tell.
And Doug again: Your Lawrence Welk tribute was hilarious. Loved it! However, I’m not too happy about you taking my snow pick day for 1st snow in BBurg and Roa. Haha, just kidding. Although, I may have to strategize differently now…I don’t think we’ve had much luck in the past contests whether it be snow or heat. I hope we can turn things around this winter. And if you pick a high snow total, looks like we’ll have to diffuse Sam Oakey! Haha.
I enjoyed sitting outside Saturday night and early Sunday morning to watch the meteor shower. The clouds cleared out just in time, and the temps were a little crisp, prompting us to get light coats while we watched…but the good thing was, no bugs.
Only downside was that the adjacent drag strip, for whatever reason, ran until just past 2am, taking what was otherwise an enjoyable evening and making it hard to talk to my wife without yelling, and made it very hard to relax every time one of the dragsters or motorcycles opened their throttles all the way.
I love our house, and I love our community…but one of the neighbors? Not so much.
It was 53 up here on the ridge this morning. I had to make a trip down Bent Mt. this morning to the Tanglewood area – the view off of Bent Mt. and out over the Roanoke Valley was picturesque with the mountain tops sticking up out of the foggy valleys.
A picture is worth a buncha words.
http://marine.rutgers.edu/mrs/sat_data/?product=sst®ion=capehat¬humbs=0
This shows clearly where and how warm the gulf stream is. That’s why you don’t pay attention to shoreline temps caused by up-welling. SW winds do this all summer on and off, especially when a Bermuda high anchors up. The stream is only about 30 miles off Cape Hatteras and anything riding the stream has ample fuel. They might have hatched in the tropics but the nursey is along and in the stream. So, if it wants to head inland, cold shore water won’t have any effect on a storm. These systems get fat off riding the current up and with little shear and lack of a system pushin it out, somebody’s gonna get their backside handed to them on a plate. And it don’t have to be a full blown hurricane. Noreasters generally cause as much damage due to the backside emptying the sounds and causing major flooding. If they come right up the OBX or slightly offshore the wind is a culprit and pushs water to the west side. Once they go past, the NW blow emptys the sounds and puts the water on the islands. I’ve seen the sound basically dry where 5′/8′ of water was the hour before. But humans jest can’t learn you don’t stop a runaway freight train with a flashing redlight. In the link above, any white areas will be clouds, The rest is worth a close look.
Thanks KM.
OTHER JOHN!!! A drag strip was making a racket until 2 AM?!?!?!? I call that “CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT!” I would have been calling 911 and the county police chief and anyone else I could “B&M” to, because loud noises actually cause me pain. Motel here I come. That is outrageous.
Back to weather. Today was a very nice day to do a walking route, lots of clouds at times …… very nice by Roanoke standards, at least. It was not my bigger walking route. I get to walk the same route tomorrow, and then ride Wed., and then have the monster on Thursday.
WD!! Great, great satellite images. TYVM. I need a tutorial in what the different colors mean, but one can tell just from the rapid changes in the colors that the temps can change quickly and radically. Thanks for explaining the importance of the Gulf Stream.
And I learned from the nautical museum exhibit that I saw at Manteo how devastating a Nor’easter can be (the epic “Ash Wednesday” Northeaster of 1962.) Both New Jersey and the Outer Banks got devastated by that multi-day event. The dollar impact in 2012 or the next few years would be absolutely incredible if a duplicate were to come along. Not only from the inflation, but especially from all the development, both residential and commercial.
Nick, glad to read your comments, and I am delighted that someone here got a kick out of my references to Lawrence Welk. Hey, Nick, choose whatever date you want. But I would never forgive myself if I did NOT pick 12-12-12 (“LWTD”) and it ended up being the first snow date for either city.
And I just may pick a high snow total. I did in late 2008, and I think that following winter was well below normal for snowfall.
In fact, wd, a case can be made, and I am making it (perhaps you would agree …) that all that development along the Atlantic seaboard is a catastrophe waiting to happen. OK, perhaps “catastrophe” is a bit too strong. But “calamity” is not. Entire sand dunes were shifted from that storm of 1962. Five high tides swamped Kitty Hawk and the “OBX” as some of you call it.
Mr. Griggs, Jimmy Durante said it best. And you are correct in what you called it. Ole Jimmy called it a ” ca-tas-tro-strofe.
Mr. Griggs, when you pull up that site, theres multiple images available. Click on any of them and a temp chart appears on the right side that denotes color and temp readings.
Nick, I am only counting substantially foggy mornings too and I think I am now at 6. No, I am closer to 221 – the northern end of the county not Rt. 8. If you look at an Intellicast Radar map for this area, I am where the letters “FCX” are – that’s the Doppler. I believe that since I am at such a high elevation, I can see the tall thunder clouds better.
Getting some slight drizzle over the ROA Valley at 8pm… Shows up on radar and confirmed outside.
Do you live within 25 miles of Roanoke? Want to see something funny? Go to weather.com and search under Roanoke or any of the Roanoke zip codes (24011, 24012, etc.), then pull up the “Hourly Forecast.”
I swear to God, someone at that website is on mushrooms or something even stronger. A 70% chance of t-storms at 2 AM and a 60% chance at 3 AM??? The only remote possibility is that a small band of rain/t-storms down east of Johnson City area of extreme NE Tenn. might make it all the way up here in 3+ hours. Yeah, right!!
I just saw a toad in our driveway. Years ago we used to see them pretty frequently, but I haven’t seen one in about a year. Does this mean (A) I am about to get very wet within a week? (B) That seeing the toad is merely a sign of how dry it is around here, and he/she is looking for a new water source because his current “home” is getting drier? Or (C) neither of the above. I vote (C).
That rain area has crossed the border into Grayson County and a tiny bit of it is even into western half of Wythe. Could TWC be proven right? I hope so!! But I bet not.
For breakfast I will eat OJ, toast, some deli meat and coffee along with my words. We DID get a bit of rain overnight, although it was very light judging from lack of puddles. The heart of the rainfall stayed on the western side of I-81 (24-hour radar loop available on wunderground). 67* here now.