Weather Headlines
Rain and some thunder for Friday night
An unsettled weekend
A beautiful start to our workweek expected
Main threats
There are no significant threats expected through at least Wednesday.
Baldwin’s 7-Day forecast
Daily Forecast
Thursday: Sunny and pleasant. The perfect day to get outside.
Friday: Continued nice, but with clouds on the increase and a bit of a breeze. Showers and thunder develop overnight. Rainfall amounts look to stay under one-half inch.
Saturday-Sunday: A chance of showers each day, especially on Sunday.
Monday: A chance for showers.
Tuesday – Wednesday: A return to pleasant spring weather.
Almanac
Wx Hazards Across the Nation
It’s a wintry day across the middle of the country, from Utah and Wyoming, eastward to New England. More snow, of various intensities, can be found along that zone today. Portions of Nebraska to southern Iowa could see close to a foot of snow today! Showers can be found south of that boundary. Another system brings light wintry precip to the mountains of central California, while more showers will be found at the opposite end of the country across southern Florida.
Yesterday’s National High and Low Temperature
High: 97 degrees at North Palm Beach, Florida
Low: -9 degrees at Atlantic City, Wisconsin
Difference of: 106 degrees
Records
Today is the anniversary of the one and only F-5 ever recorded in the state of Tennessee. The twister struck Lawrence County on April 16, 1998. The tornado was up to one mile wide and swept homes clean of their foundations and even carried away the debris, even of homes bolted to their foundations! That’s what F-5s do. They tear down the house and then they carry away the debris. You literally have nothing left of anything.
The storm raged through Lawrence county for 22 miles. The twister hurled a one-ton pickup truck nearly 350 feet. Trees were denuded of limbs and then debarked. A swath of fields, up to 200 feet wide, appeared to have been plowed to a depth of at least one foot deep. All grass was gone. Miraculously, no one was in any of the homes destroyed, so no one lost their life!
That tornado was overshadowed by the city of Nashville being struck by an F-3 tornado that same day. This made Music City the first city in the US in 20 years to be directly impacted by a significant tornado. There was so much news coverage of the Nashville tornado that one would hardly know anything had happened anywhere else.
The Nashville supercell tracked all the way to Byrdstown, where it produced another F-3 that destroyed numerous homes and did incredible damage to forestland.
Weather Trivia (New!)
What state has experienced the most tornado outbreaks with three or more violent tornadoes?
a. Oklahoma b. Texas c. Kansas d. Alabama e. Tennessee
(Answer at the bottom of the blog)
NASA Knowledge
Did you know that NASA’s satellites do more than just give us beautiful pictures? Sure, we get amazing pictures of Earth, the Moon, the planets….well, anything in outer space! But, other satellites have different functions. For instance, NASA has always been concerned with both human and natural pollution that affects our planet, from their effect on warming temperatures to droughts to smog, etc.
So, NASA has satellites that just measure things like nitrogen oxide, ground-level ozone, carbon monoxide, particulate matter, and sulfur dioxide…all pollutants responsible for the writing of The Clean Air Act of 1970. And they measure these from space!
The use of these satellites becomes more and more important and we work so hard to understand the changing climates of the Earth. Since ground measuring devices aren’t available world-wide, the satellite data is quite valuable in those areas especially.
Long Range Outlook
The period of April 21-25 favors average temperatures and well above average rainfall.
Temperature
Precipitation
Baldwin’s View-of-the-Day
This is the Lawrence County F-5. Can you imagine taking video of Tennessee’s only known F-5?
Answer to Trivia Question
Unfortunately, the answer is (e) Tennessee. Since 1950, we lead the nation in tornado outbreaks containing three or more violent (EF-4+) tornadoes. The graph below shows how other states rank.
You all have a great day!
