Cold-air damming is sort of
doing its thing, fending off the warm Atlantic air. Winds were light
north-northeasterly initially with a low of 19F before the coastal front just
passed through Augusta as it weakened, leading to winds turning to east-southeasterly,
strengthening to a maximum of 17 kt, with a high of 30F, a bit warmer than I
thought would happen. Not quite the classic cold air damming, perhaps due to
the lack of a true arctic air mass with sharp low-level inversion. Since then, northeasterly
winds returned and it cooled down slightly. Steady light to moderate snow has
fallen since late last night, but mysteriously, no measurable precipitation was
recorded which is clearly wrong! I will email the national manager to see what
can be done with the precipitation verification in this city. Winds are not
strong, so I do not know why undercatch is such an issue today – oh well. Snow
will be ending shortly after 06z tonight. With the low-level cold air still in place
and some clearing with light winds and fresh snow cover, some radiational
cooling is expected late tonight. However, models disagree on just how much it
clears out, leading to uncertainty in the low temperature. By tomorrow, winds
will switch to a downsloping westerly wind along with weak cold advection, and a
little sunshine will lead to more vertical mixing, scouring out any low-level
cold air. However, the downsloping wind will be weak and weaken further in the
afternoon, and there will be a fair amount of mid-level cloud cover that will
limit daytime heating.
No comments:
Post a Comment