A Miss, but a Win for the Models

Currently
The recent trend of cold, but dry, weather continues in the Washington DC area as the models correctly predicted that precipitation would stay south of the region. The sun gradually strengthened this morning through a high overcast which was caused by a weak low pressure area bringing mostly rain to the southeastern states. In far southwestern Virginia, precipitation was in the form of snow. At mid-morning, radar showed precipitation advancing as far as just north of Richmond and just south of Charlottesville, but none of it was reported reaching the ground. These areas were becoming more scattered by noon. A few stations in West Virginia had light snow. Light rain reached as far north as the Norfolk area in southeastern Virginia.

Temperatures should warm up to near 50 this afternoon in most locations. It's now 49 here in Montgomery County.Tonight should see temperatures below freezing for the 12th time so far this month, with lows about 30. Tomorrow will be sunny with temperatures a few degrees warmer, into the low 50's, nearly seasonable for this time of year.

March so far
March is normally one of the wettest months in Washington, with an average of 10.1 days, or 33%, having measurable precipitation. For the first half of this month, we have seen only 2 such days. Last year on the 16th, we were beginning a 6-day stretch of rain and drizzle. As for the temperature, there has been only one day so far which averaged above normal. The overall average of 5.3 degrees below the long-term normal, if it continues, would make this the coldest March in over 20 years, just 0.1 degree warmer than in 1984.

In the news
The industrial grade 80,000-ton ice sculpture near Fairbanks we mentioned last week has collapsed from above-normal temperatures, according to a report in the Anchorage Daily News.

On a somewhat larger scale, there were reports this week that the snow cap of Mt. Kilimanjaro has melted for the first time in 11,000 years.

It's mid-March; do you know where your spring is?

Currently
It's a few degrees warmer today than at the same time yesterday, although the winds are actually stronger, gusting as high as 29 mph around the area at 1pm. Temperatures ranged from 45 to 48, heading for a high around 50 under sunny skies.

Outlook
Clouds will increase by tomorrow morning as a low-pressure area getting organized in the western Gulf of Mexico this morning heads eastward. Yesterday, we told you that precipitation from this storm was likely to remain south of us, and that trend has been confirmed by model runs since then. Both major U.S. models this morning are again keeping the precipitation to the south, although some measurable precipitation does make it as far north as central Virginia. This means we can't totally rule out some light rain or snow in the southern part of the area; the most likely time would be tomorrow morning or early afternoon. After that, the most likely time for precipitation in the area is Saturday or Saturday night; amounts will probably be light.

Through the looking glass
I have rarely looked at Southern Hemisphere weather maps, so I find them a bit disorienting; they're a mirror image of what we're used to. Severe tropical cyclone Ingrid, after bouncing around the northern Australian coast, was making its third landfall this morning (early hours of Wednesday Australian time) as a category 4 storm with wind gusts up to 260 km/hr. It had previously strengthened to a category 5 over the Gulf of Timor. ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corp.) was reporting that winds of over 280 km/hr were hitting the remote resort of Faraway Bay. The storm had moved north of Darwin, which was nearly destroyed by Cyclone Tracy on Christmas Day, 1974.

Breaking news: March temperatures today in DC area!

Currently
With no precipitation so far and therefore more sun than expected, temperatures are warming up more than we originally forecast. National was at 53 with a high overcast by 1pm, and it was in the lower 50's in most other places. Further south, it was 57 in Fredericksburg. With continued sun and a southwest wind ahead of a low-pressure area that was moving into western Pennsylvania at mid-morning, we will be close to the normal high for the date of 54, an unusual event this March. Around midnight last night, radar showed scattered areas of snow showers in the mountains of West Virginia and about as far east as Hagerstown in Maryland, but very little was reaching the ground. Hagerstown did report a trace of precipitation overnight. (This must be one of those "Discount Snow Storms" eBay was advertising over to the right last night.) Today, the nearest activity around 1pm is widely scattered rain showers in central Maryland and a bit east of I-81 in northern Virginia. The model forecasts have been consistently over-predicting precipitation for the DC area from this situation, but we still can't rule out the possibility of a shower of flurry later in the day. The most likely time for this would be late this afternoon or early evening.

The weekend
For the weekend, a mixture of clouds and sun with a slight chance of rain or snow showers should continue with colder temperatures, as described by Jason below.

The Weather Channel
I was living in Woodstock, NY in the early 80's when our local community antenna with about 10 channels was upgraded to a "real" cable system. The TV's and VCR's in those days didn't have digital tuners, so you had to manually tune in a channel to a particular button. I remember my excitement when I twisted the tiny knob to find all weather, all the time. Now, I have to agree with Jason that it's a lot less appealing. I hope I don't sound like I have stock in the company since this is my second mention of it here, but the answer to this (besides the Web, of course) is TiVo. (I don't; they have a great product but terrible financial performance.) By leaving the box tuned to that channel, you always have the most recent 30 minutes of content available. You can use fast-forward to get the approximately 5 minutes of useful content out of that in 5 minutes or less, and you can use pause on the radar loop if necessary. I find that this technique works quite well with CNBC also, if you don't care about the conventional wisdom regarding the latest oil price blip.

Editorial note: If you need basketball coverage and want to look more productive at work, the Post is running a blog from the MCI center. You can get to it here

Mid-day update

Now
A very weak trough of low pressure moved over the area this morning, bringing with it some light snow flurries, enough to whiten the ground in a few areas. Washington National reported light snow at 8am with a temperature of 28. Temperatures are a bit higher than yesterday at this time, in the mid 30's at noon and upper 30's at 1pm. Highs should be in the low 40's under partly cloudy skies.

Later
As Josh explains below, the model predictions are bringing a low pressure area which was over Minnesota this morning southeastward and off the coast. This has the potential to give us some light precipitation on Friday and Friday night. We have been misled at times by the models recently, but both major U.S. models this morning were showing that temperatures in the lower half of the atmosphere will be cold enough for anything which does fall to be snow. As has been usual in the recent upper air flow pattern, the major storm development should be off the coast with most of the precipitation occurring in northern and eastern New England.

Broadcast news
Our friend Tony Pann of Channel 9 will be starting a weekly weather talk show beginning April 10 on WCBM 680 AM at 3pm.

Don't try this at home, kids
You wouldn't want to try this with WSSC water rates, but check out NPR's report yesterday on what you could do with industrial quantities of water, months of sub-freezing air, and perhaps a wee bit too much time on your hands in the long Alaskan winter.

Image: Ice sculpture from Alaskan Alpine Club, via NPR

Mid-day update

Today's menu
Momma Nature lost all track of the calendar down at the Weather Grill, so they've had to clean out the freezer by putting lots of winter leftovers on the menu. They were in such a rush that they didn't take the time to thaw all the ingredients; many meals were sent back to the kitchen yesterday. Today's lunch specials include more below-January-normal temperatures, and the breeze gusting over 20 mph makes it feel even colder. Around the area, temperatures were barely reaching the freezing mark at noon, heading for a high no more than the upper 30's. It's also very dry, with dewpoints in the single digits; without the wind, it would have been even colder last night than the official low of 20.

A bit of history
In the classic words of SCTV, our low pressure area from yesterday "blowed up real good" in the Gulf of Maine. The isobars are crowded so close together on this morning's weather map that it's a bit hard to read, but I think I see the digits "962" as the minimum pressure in mb. This is stronger than all except one of the 20 classic snowstorms from 1955-85 analyzed by Kocin and Uccellini in their book "Snowstorms Along the Northeastern Coast of the United States". (I notice from the news at the link above that TVLand will be airing SCTV beginning March 18. If you're too young to have seen this before, stay up late, clear the space on your TiVo, do whatever it takes, you must watch. This just in from the Irony Dept: The blogger spell-check suggests "castoff" as an alternative to "SCTV".)

Contest faux pas
Our FROPA contest seems to have been a faux pas, since we don't have any entries. If we get some T-shirts printed up, will that help next time? It seemed like a good idea, but it didn't get reviewed by the quality control folks at the Weather Grill. Because of the dynamic nature of weather data and the Web, it's not that easy to find a verifiable record of 24-hour temperature changes. When I tried to check the recent history at the local high school, I got the message "Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error '80040e07' " Thank you, Mr. Bill! The nearby middle school came through, however. The biggest 24-hour temperature drop I found was at 1pm, just after the snow ended yesterday, when the temperature of 27.5 was a whopping 41.9 degrees below Monday's at the same time. There were 5 hours which had day-to-day temperature drops over 40 degrees. These temperature changes are much more characteristic of the Midwest than the East Coast.

Still hope for spring
Despite the latest antics of the Weather Grill kitchen crew, spring is still on the way. The first estimate of the peak for the cherry blossoms in Washington is April 4-9.

Mid-day: Springing back to winter

To paraphrase the poet, "What is so rare as a day in March?" In Washington so far this month, that would be an actual March day. Of the 7 March days including today, only one (yesterday) has had a high temperature which would be considered normal for any day in March. By late morning today, temperatures around the DC area were already at 60 or higher in many locations with generally south winds. The long-term average high for the last day of the month is 61. At noon, Washington National was at 63, and by 1pm, most reporting stations were in the upper 60's, with 70 in a couple of places. Today's record high of 77 doesn't look in jeopardy, but it does happen to be equal to the lowest record high for any day in March.

Momma Nature finally shut the freezer door at the Weather Grill over the weekend, but it's going to be flying right off the hinges this week. As Jason explains below, winter temperatures will be back by mid-day tomorrow. As Josh showed in the 10-day outlook on Thursday, this is caused by a strong high-pressure ridge at upper levels in the atmosphere over western North America, along with a strong trough developing over the eastern part of the continent. Under the ridge, California is drying out from their recent near-record rains. Under the trough, as it deepens, cold air will move steadily southward from Canada to the East Coast. This pattern also has a lot of energy associated with it, so there will some storm activity at the surface, although the Weather Grill chefs are still trying to decide exactly where and when to serve the spiciest dishes later in the week. On this morning's weather map, this is reflected in a strengthening low-pressure area centered over Michigan with a cold front extending southward to Texas.

We tend to focus our attention upstream (westward), since that's where our weather comes from, but the Northern Hemisphere circulation pattern continues to the east after our weather leaves us. The high-amplitude pattern, with a large north/south component of the upper-level wind direction, continues around the rest of the hemisphere. There is another strong ridge over the Atlantic and a corresponding trough over Europe, which accounts for the cold weather over there. The "Beeb" has posted slide shows of the snow and cold in Britain and the Continent.

Image: An abandoned car covered in snow in Kent, southern England, from BBC

Mid-day update: Marching in Washington

Now
Washington has long been noted for its Marches, and as Josh explains below, this one promises to be every bit as exciting as many in the past. Except for a sun angle more typical of World Series time in October (Did you notice how BRIGHT the snow was Tuesday?), today could easily be mistaken for a mid-January day whose temperature is about 5 degrees below the average for that time of year. Yesterday's high was only 37. That was as cold as, or colder than, 20 days of this past January and all but 2 days of last month. Brisk northwesterly winds gusting up to 30 mph should make it feel even colder than that. The winds are generated by the pressure difference ("gradient") between a large high-pressure area stretching from the upper Midwest all the way to the Gulf of Mexico and the low pressure area which brought our snow on Monday, still spinning over the Maritime provinces of Canada.

How cold can it get in DC in March? The all-time low of 4 was set on the 4th in 1873. On the other hand, the lowest record maximum for any date in March is 77, with an all-time high of 93 on the 23rd in 1907. So, if you want to experience all the seasons in Washington, come back each March, and you'll eventually see just about every kind of weather except tropical storms. Some years, you might even see spring!

At noon, temperatures around the area ranged from 32 at Leesburg to 39 at Culpeper, within a degree or 2 of those at the same time yesterday. Winds were gusting as high as 26 mph. We're on track for a high in the upper 30's and a low tonight about 20.

Tales from the Weather Grill
In our last episode, we revealed some of the secrets behind Momma Nature's management of the Weather Grill. Unfortunately, that wasn't the whole story. In fact, it's downright chaotic there. As we said, she goes out and buys the very best ingredients: crispy cold air, ripe juicy tropical moisture, the liveliest energy ("vorticity") available. She hires the most skilled technicians to develop partial-differential equations and program them into the tastiest recipes. But then, something seems to go terribly wrong. Perhaps she forgets where she put the recipe and leaves the ingredients sitting around until they spoil and have to be thrown out. Maybe she rushes around too fast and everything turns out undercooked. Or, she mixes the ingredients, puts them into the oven, and then spends so much time talking on her cell phone to the other goddesses that she doesn't hear the timer go off, and dinner is burned beyond all recognition. What can you do? She's a quirky lady, but she's the only Nature we've got. Even though we keep complaining, snow fans or snow-haters alike, we love her anyway, and we keep coming back to see what she's dishing out today. If you don't like your meal, please don't complain to us. We don't cook it; we only interpret the menu from the clues Momma gives out. If you want, you could try filing a report at Zagat's.

Washington Wacky Winter Weather Wimpiness
Recent discussion of the wimpiness of Washington's response to winter weather (or the threat thereof) reminded me of the fast-food commercial of a decade or so ago which went something like this:
Geezer 1: "When I was a kid, we had to walk to school 10 miles in the snow. And it was uphill both ways. In fact, we didn't even have shoes on our feet."
Geezer 2: "Feet, you had feet?"