SUMMARY
Today will be quite pleasant, folks, with highs reaching the low the mid 70s. The only catch will be the wind, which will become a bit gusty as we go through the day. With rather low humidity levels, we’ll have to watch our fire danger. We already had one fire on Millstone Mountain on the eastern side of the county yesterday. Things dry out fast this time of year!
Today’s breezes are due in part to a cold front that will be passing through here tonight. It is moisture starved, so we won’t see much rainfall from it at all, but it will drop our temps back down again. Most of our Thursday will be spent in the 40s, with a north breeze. Then, we warm right back up for Friday and Saturday, before another cold front drops us back to below normal temps for the first half of next week.
Temperature outlook for next week.
DISCUSSION
As you can see, our temps will take a dip next week. At least it won’t be as cold as it was this past Monday. The cooler air is due to a system that is taking a southerly track, which is a bit unusual for this time of year. This kind of track is usually how we get snow in the winter. But, when this happens in late April we just get cool showers. Highs next week look to generally be in the 50s for the first half of the week.
Speaking of temperatures, how about that warm-up yesterday? I thought we’d get to 60-62 degrees but we ended up getting to 68 here at weatherTAP. That means we rose 40 degrees from our morning low of 28. That’s impressive, folks! The dry air and abundant sunshine really turned on the furnace for us. Dry, dessert-like air heats up really fast, and that’s just what we saw yesterday.
But if you think that’s impressive, Nashville warmed up 50 degrees yesterday! They went from a morning low of 30 degrees to an afternoon high of 80 degrees! The NWS Nashville thinks this may be the greatest temperature rise in the city’s history. Believe it or not, it’s not the greatest temperature change in the city’s history. Back on January 23, 1963 the city went from an afternoon high of 48 to an overnight low of -13, which is a 61 degree temperature drop. But, that was a DROP in temperature. Yesterday was likely the greatest RISE in temperature.
Nashville had a trace of snow on Monday, and on Tuesday they were 80 degrees. This weather is getting a little too crazy. It is also remarkable that this temperature change wasn’t due to any kind of frontal passage. It was just dry air heating up under a ton of sunshine.
Speaking of crazy weather, I’ve been watching a winter storm over Iowa this morning and noticed that thundersnow was in their forecast. I looked at our weatherTAP lightning map and just about fell out of my chair! I’ve never seen so much lightning associated with a winter storm. No wonder snow is falling at a rate of 2 inches an hour up there!
Look at all those lightning strikes!
This is their current radar, showing heavy snow.
I think our snow on the plateau is done for the year, but I would never bet any money on that (ha). Next week looks cool but not cold. I was looking at the extended outlooks beyond next week, which are problematic, at best. They indicated below normal temps will stick around a while.
This is the outlook for April 26-May 11. This doesn’t mean it will be cool every day, but that the overall (average) pattern would feature below-normal temperatures. On the bright side, the storm chaser in me does NOT like this pattern (ha). A pattern like this means severe weather chances will be few and far between.
I was looking at some records this morning and saw one or two for California. One was for the worst hailstorm in California’s history. April 18, 1944 was when the Sacramento Valley region was hit with two hailstorms that destroyed two million dollars in fruit crops, devastating the local economy for that year. I saw on the news where Oakland had a hailstorm this past Monday and it looked like snow. People were trying to drive on it and they were slipping and sliding all over the place. This was one picture taken from a traffic helicopter. How crazy is that? See, we’re not the only ones having weird weather!
Today is also the anniversary of the horrendous 1906 San Francisco earthquake. What a quake that was, folks. Oddly, after the quake an unusual easterly wind developed and helped spread the fires that nearly burned the whole city.
Thankfully, we have no natural disasters to worry about around here for today! You all have a great day and try and enjoy this beautiful weather as much as you can. It still looks like Saturday will be nice! How long has it been since I could say that?
With the extended outlooks looking so bleak for severe weather anywhere across the country for next week. someone made this meme and shared it on Twitter (haha).
