Weather Headlines
Dry and warmer conditions
Warmest air of the season coming Friday
Showers and storms return later in the day Saturday
Rain and storms return for Tuesday
Main threats
Rain and storms will move back into the area Saturday evening/night. While some of these storms may be on the strong side, widespread severe weather is not expected. That threat is expected to stay well to our west now. I’ll keep an eye on this.
More rain and storms will move in by next Tuesday, but it’s too early to know if those storms will be strong. Early indications are that they will not be. Monitoring.
Summary
We’ll see clouds gradually break up today, hopefully leading to some peaks of the sun before sunset. I think that’s a pretty good bet. I think we could all use some sunshine!
The weather is looking very nice for Thursday. Be sure and get outside.
Friday is looking nice, as well, though I think we’ll see more clouds. Those of you around and north of Jamestown may see a shower but that chance is awfully low. Otherwise, we should all flirt with the 80-degree mark, which will be the warmest we’ve been thus far this spring season.
The next system arrives sometime early next week. We’ll wait for more data before getting too specific with that system.
Almanac
Baldwin’s 7-Day forecast
Wx Hazards Across the Nation
A winter storm will bring lots of snow and cold air to the western US, while showers and storms plague the Southeast Coast today.
Records
Crossville recorded a high of 82 degrees on this day in 2007, which established a new all-time record high for the month of March.
Will we break that tomorrow? I doubt it, but we could get close!
Wednesday Wind Day
Researchers with the University of Oklahoma recorded the highest wind speed ever recorded with Doppler radar on May 3, 1999. The Doppler was positioned on a truck bed and was called “Doppler on wheels,” also known as DOW. This mobile radar made it possible to capture incredible data with tornadoes like never before.
During a historic outbreak of tornadoes, the DOW rolled out to Bridge Creek, Oklahoma, just southwest of Oklahoma City to track an incredibly powerful supercell. They ended up measuring a wind speed of 318 mph 105 feet up off the ground! The DOW’s wind speed margin of error is 20 mph.
At that time, an F-5 tornado’s wind speeds stopped at 318 mph. That means this tornado came close to having the wind speeds of an unprecedented F-6. Today, we have the EF scale, which simply states that anything over 200 mph is EF-5. There can never be an EF-6.
This was the first F-5 tornado to ever move into a major residential area. We have yet to ever see one move into a major city center. God forbid.
The Bridge Creek tornado later rolled through Moore, Oklahoma and did absolutely incredible damage to the southern suburb community of Oklahoma City. It is a tornado we talk of even today, and will for the rest of our lives. If you ever want to test whether or not someone is a true weather nerd just say “May 3 ’99”. If they don’t know what you’re talking about they’re a phony. (ha)
Pictured below is the Bridge Creek tornado, as it was producing winds over 300 mph. I went out there with my parents just two weeks later and saw the damage. I’ve never looked at tornadoes the same since.
NASA Knowledge
In this image from Dec. 2019, astronaut Christina Koch handles media bags that enable the manufacturing of organ-like tissues using the BioFabrication Facility (BFF), a 3-D biological printer on the International Space Station. The BFF could become a part of a larger system capable of manufacturing whole, fully functioning human organs from existing patient cells in microgravity. How cool is that?
News
It’s not exactly weather related, but last night many of you saw where I posted that there was a massive 7.5 earthquake near the Pacific Coast of Russia at around 10:00 pm. It was initially a 7.8 but was downgraded to 7.5 (that happens a lot). The quake generated a tsunami but thankfully it was a very, very small one and was no threat to land. Never the less, there were some awfully tense moments for the Pacific Coasts of the United States and Hawaii. There was even a tsunami watch for Hawaii for about an hour. Thankfully, the quake was so deep that it didn’t displace any water.
You all have a great day!