Tuesday, March 10, 2020


Tuesday Night - Mostly Cloudy. Low: 40-44

Wednesday - Mostly Cloudy. High: 62-66


Wednesday Night - Partly Cloudy. Low: 48-52


Thursday - Cloudy, PM Rain. High: 66-70


Friday - Mostly Sunny. High: 48-52

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Discussion: 
The stubborn cloudy skies that dominated the day have limited today's high temperatures to much lower than previously forecast. The skies will begin to clear out around sunset this evening. This will allow the sun to come out tomorrow which will warm temperatures to more springlike conditions. Temperatures for Thursday look to be slightly warmer, but there will be a potential for rain Thursday evening ahead of an approaching cold front. This cold front will pass through the area overnight Thursday into Friday morning. This cold front will the clear skies out and drop the high temperatures to the coldest of the week.
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Forecasters: Gallahan, Munley
Issued:  5:00pm: March 10, 2020

Technical Discussion (The nerdy stuff we are discussing in class)
12z NAM/GFS blend were used for this forecast period along with SREF/GEFS plumes for temperatures.

The main topics for this forecast are when the cloud cover today will clear out, how warm the temperatures will warm tomorrow due to the clearing skies and the potential for rain Thursday evening ahead of an approaching cold front.

250mb winds and heights show the polar jet to the north and the subtropical jet to the south. This, along with the low number of 500mb waves are putting the area in a zonal pattern. Along with the zonal pattern, atmospheric circulations at 500mb look to be very minimal until Wednesday at 09z where the circulation increases. This increase in atmospheric circulation will last until 15z tomorrow. 700mb RH and UVM values look to be relatively low until 09z to 15z as well. The highest values of these look to remain off to the southwest. 850mb winds also don't look very impressive. So even though the ingredients for rain look to be there, with them remaining off to the southwest and the lack of low level support will leave nothing else but some cloud cover for this time. Tomorrow afternoon, there will be clearing skies throughout the rest of the day into tomorrow evening as the moisture ingredients previously mentioned move off to the south and southeast. These clearing skies will allow the temperatures for tomorrow to warm up to more springlike conditions throughout the day. The potential for rain comes back into the picture for Thursday. This is because the 500mb atmospheric circulations begin to increase again. The 700mb RH increases back to near 95% and the UVM increases back up to near 10ubar/s and the 850mb winds begin to increasing allowing for low level support. 12z NAM and GFS soundings also indicate this rain potential as well as the column will begin to saturate around 18z Thursday. PWAT values increase up to 1.02 inches along with the CAPE values increasing to 728 J/kg, so there will be some instability but nothing substantial. This leads to believe that the rain that happens will be standard stratiform rain with the potential for a couple thunderstorms. A change in wind direction follows after the rain as the winds will shift to out of the northwest. This gives us a backing wind pattern with height bringing in CAA overnight Thursday into early Friday morning. This frontal passage will clear skies for Friday and will cause high temperatures to drop nearly fifteen degrees.

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