wxmeddler

Saturday, probably ok. Increasing clouds. Sunday, breezy, more clouds, somewhere between drizzle/light rain and an absolute washout. Monday: Breezy and light rain

You are wise to use this rule... Why are you here again? The s/w coming in and how far west that dives in is the key to this. The more west the more the track sticks to the coastline. Some of the high-res guidance (NSSL-MPAS, RRFS) are back into the OH/IN border. Little bit of a global vs high-res discrepancy starting to emerge.

Did some digging this morning. Obviously the dynamic models are struggling with the evolution of the s/w cutoff low breaking from the main stream. The lack of upper air data up that way doesn't help. The main factor in east/west placement of the precip is how far east/west the s/w stalls out. GFS places it further west near Sandusky, while the Euro has it towards Erie/Buffalo. This matters as the main precip hit is following the 700mb frontogenic forcing in the lead-up to the two cutoff's merging. There is some correlated jet coupling going on too.

GFS has at least stuck to it's guns. And we can never forget that it did, yes.

So some version of this is really happening huh. Dang, what a weird thing this is gonna turn out to be.

The rain gauge is responding to commands. So it's not broken. I called the folks down there and they said it did rain, but "barely anything". Could be that it got some debris in it. Someone will be up there tomorrow to inspect / clear it out.

Just saw the 0z Euro. That is uh... something.

We'll take it:

It's not technically tropical because it's not a "warm core" system. It's attached to a frontal boundary and has characteristics of a mid-latitude cyclone. Regardless, the impacts on the beaches will be the same as a weak tropical storm. Erosion/Overwash in the normal places is likely in the OBX.

GFS is lost. Toss it.

It got a lot warmer than I thought it would today. Clouds kept the temps down east of the Blue Ridge

Needed more wind or more fair weather cumulus. But a 9/10 day. Gulf Stream low getting pulled north looks interesting coming into the weekdays.

A perfect light soaking rain last night. Just enough to reprieve the short root grasses and alleviate tree leave stress. The farmers... are not happy, too little for a proper late season growth spurt, and just enough to make everything that has reached maturity damp.

This back door marine flow is not going to let go.

Not a cloud for Howard Co area and west to the Alleghenies http://mesonet.umd.edu/Clarksville

I've played with the HMP155's a lot. We had over 300 of them when I worked in North Dakota. I think they're the best Temp/RH combo instrument on the market right now, especially if you put them in an aspirated shield. They occasionally have a 1-3% low bias in RH at very high humidities (96-100%) but other than that they work fantastic as long as you keep them maintained and calibrated on the regular schedule. Vaisala recommends every year, but we did them every 2 years and it was no loss in quality. 95% of the ones we sent back for calibration after 2 years came back with only minor (<.2°C) (1-3%RH) adjustments.

Dry soil is a huge factor in getting larger diurnal swings. We're pretty dry statewide at 4" and getting to the point at 8" where some types of grasses are having trouble accessing water due to their shallower root systems.

I'm saving this for future powerpoints. Thanks.

For as much as we suffered through June & July; JJA as a season is gonna come back looking average.

TS Watches for OBX as of the 5p advisory

The washing machine took me out 2 weeks ago when the last NE'ly flow event happened. I'm still finding sand in places you'd never think sand could ever reach.

18z GFS has a doozy. Some very weak ensemble support as well. Odds still very much against though.

The Ridgely MD Mesonet station picked up 1.10" in 20 min. That's impressive.

Can't complain for July 22nd. The lower dew points didn't sink as far south as I expected.

The flooding down in Fauquier / Manassas counties sounds isolatedly bad.