GaWx

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN TALLAHASSEE HAS ISSUED A * TORNADO WARNING FOR... NORTHWESTERN JEFFERSON COUNTY IN BIG BEND OF FLORIDA... NORTHEASTERN LEON COUNTY IN BIG BEND OF FLORIDA... * UNTIL 600 PM EDT. * AT 529 PM EDT, A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM CAPABLE OF PRODUCING A TORNADO WAS LOCATED 8 MILES NORTHEAST OF TALLAHASSEE, MOVING EAST AT 25 MPH.

New tornado watch for SE GA/S SC til 11 PM. PS: The thread title needs to have April 6th added and probably should be pinned.

TW extended til 4:45 PM: TORNADO WARNING FOR... WESTERN WILCOX COUNTY IN CENTRAL GEORGIA... SOUTHEASTERN DOOLY COUNTY IN CENTRAL GEORGIA... CRISP COUNTY IN CENTRAL GEORGIA... AT 402 PM EDT, A TORNADO PRODUCING STORM WAS LOCATED OVER CORDELE, MOVING EAST AT 20 MPH.

A tornado has apparently been seen in south central GA and is headed toward southside of Cordele. It is moving NE. From NWS, T.W. til 4 PM. LOCATIONS IMPACTED INCLUDE... CORDELE, LESLIE, DE SOTO, DESOTO, COBB, FORT EARLY, GEORGIA VETERANS MEMORIAL ST PK AND RAINES.

The McIntosh County, GA, 2008 tornado damage is still very evident looking at the trees along I-95 near mile marker 50, which is just north of the GA 251 exit. The damage there is nearly 1/2 mile wide! (2,100 feet). Here’s a link showing some of the awful damage: https://www.southeasternphotography.com/Journalism/EF4-Tornado-hits-McIntosh/ I’m thankful that I live in an area where violent tornadoes have only very rarely been within ~50 miles. This one in McIntosh County as well as yesterday’s in the Pembroke-Ellabell area are the only two I’m aware of off the top of my head. Of course, any tornado is dangerous. Our bigger concern is obviously hurricanes, which themselves have produced many tornadoes in the area.

This meteorological spring to date (March 1st-April 3rd) has averaged 4 F warmer than normal at RDU for means as well as for both highs and lows: https://www.weather.gov/wrh/Climate?wfo=rah

We’ve just completed a beautiful spring weekend and I look forward to still another this coming weekend! So far this spring has been top notch as far as delivering many days, especially during weekends, of near perfect weather for outdoors with mild to warm afternoons/evenings, sunny skies, low RH, and nice breezes. Overall temperatures have averaged slightly warmer than normal so far this met spring.

Today is the 4th beautiful sunny, breezy, and low RH spring day in a row here. I hope to got outside and enjoy it like I have the prior 3 days as there aren't that many of these types of days here typically.

Looking for another nice SE cooldown March 25-30.

Today is a near perfect day in my area for being outdoors with sunshine, highs in the low 70s, and dewpoints down in the 30s. I wish there were more days like this. Tomorrow will also be nice with dewpoints still on the low side and similar temperatures. Looking for a chilly cooler than normal low tonight in the low 40s.

There were several small hail reports in the area around midday.

ATL’s low was 25. Looking at the hourlies, it was down to 26 at 4 AM (EDT), but it dropped only 1 the next 4 hours. Even way down at Macon the low was 22, which is a new record low!At 25, that was still ATL’s coldest of the season barely beating the 3 26s of January. That makes this the third latest coldest on record there (back to 1879) and the latest when there was no snowcover.SAV’s low was 28, coldest since Jan 30th and very well forecasted by the GFS. The Euro was a little too warm (near 30). The high there is forecasted to be only in the middle 50s, ~15 BN, with extremely low dewpoints. Though not as cold, it is still expected to be another well BN one there tonight (middle 30s), which should result in frost.It got down to freezing all of the way to the coast with St. Simons Island and Ft. Pulaski down to 32! Those were well forecasted by the GFS. The Euro was several degrees too warm at SSI. @gtg947h @Awesomesauce81 mainly for SAV area lows, including Hunter at 28.

I love 70s with sunshine. The problem from my standpoint is that we’ve already had a bunch of mid 80s and humidity here going back a couple of weeks. I’d rather have more days with 70s, low RHs, and sunshine. If I could somehow have 70s to mid 80s and sunshine with low RH all year round here, I’d take it in a heartbeat.

That’s what I’m hoping for. Maybe it will also delay mosquitos and even mean a not as bad summer for them and other bugs? I’m not sure how that works, but I’m always in favor of fewer flying insect pests.

@gtg947h @Awesomesauce81 Like it or not, get ready for a freeze in our area Saturday night! The forecasted upper 20s would be the coldest since January 30th, within the top 5 coldest lows of the season, and the coldest in March since 2017.

The low 3/13 (Sunday) at KATL has an excellent chance at being the coldest of the season with low 20s expected even at the airport due to winds staying up, which usually helps that station be close to as cold as surrounding areas and considering that it should fall below 32 by soon after sunset. As of now, the coldest of the season to date is 26, reached three times in January. The low 20s low would be the coldest in March since 2009. The last times March had the coldest of the season were: 1998, 1993, 1980, 1960, 1932, 1925, 1914, 1901, 1892 (tie), and 1890. The coldest on 3/13 would be the third latest coldest on record behind only the 3/14 of 1993 (when there was 4” of snowcover from the blizzard) and the 3/19 of 1892 (a tie with January and was over a light snowcover). So, IF there’s no snowcover this time, it would become the latest in the season coldest with no snowcover. With 850s Saturday evening projected to plummet to near -11 to -12 at ATL/-13 to -14 at RDU (both extremely rare that late in the season) and a rare sub 970 mb storm forecasted for New England allowing for highly unusual very strong CAA, this is such an anomalous setup.

Augusta was up to 87 at 2PM, making it already the 2nd warmest met. winter day there on record back to 1875! That leaves only 2/28/2021’s 88 as a warmer day and that being the case only if Augusta doesn’t warm any more. The power of the SER! To compare, GSO was only at 41 at 2 PM with a miserable cold rain! So, 46 colder than Augusta! The power of the wedge!

I just realized that GSO in January tied the record (records back to 1902) for the largest number of calendar days for any month having 1"+ of snow/sleet with 4 days! This ties it with these six others: - Feb 2015 - Jan 2000 - Feb 1989 - Feb 1979 - Jan 1966 - Mar 1960 Moreover, only Jan of 2000 and Jan of 1966 had four days of 1"+ from four separate storms just as was the case for Jan of 2022. That shows how unique Jan of 2022 was at GSO.

Caution is advised when looking at any Canadian based output due to cold bias. Posted below is a comparison at 2 meters for tomorrow at 7AM EST between RGEM, NAM, WRF, and GFS and the RGEM is ridiculously colder all over like in Jackson, MS, Birmingham, Wash DC, much of VA and TN, etc. At Jackson, MS, for example, it has 16 vs 30 for the other models. It has Birmingham at 23 vs low 30s on others. Washington, DC, at 12 vs 20s others. Richmond at 14 vs 26 on others. That’s not to say there can’t or won’t be any ZR in NC the next day, but I hope the cold bias is taken into account.

I understand where you're coming from but there are some exceptions at RDU, for example, as regards 1"+ snowcover for, say, 3 days+ to keep hope alive even that late for snow to stick around awhile: - Late Feb-early Mar 2015: 5 days - Early Mar 1980: 4 days - Early Mar 1969: 4 days - Early to mid March 1960: 15 days - Early Mar 1927: 6 days - Late Feb 1914: 3 days - Early Mar 1912: 5 days

So, you're saying you already knew measurable snow was done as of Feb 3rd? Interesting. I'd like to know how you know this being that RDU's best major snow climo doesn't even start til mid-Feb and it goes through the first few days of March. Moreover, as of today in history, only 22 of the 47 6"+ RDU snowstorms on record have occurred by this date with 25 of them having occurred Feb 6th or later!

And further to the above, we still have not even reached the peak times for major SE snow/sleet storms: Per history, the frequency of big snow/sleetstorms for the SE as a whole including deep SE peaks around mid Feb after a quieter early Feb: 1. Dates of ATL 3.5"+/1.5"+ individual SN/IP storms: DEC: 4 TOTAL 2, 3-6, 11-13, 29 JAN: 15 TOTAL 1, 2-3, 7, 7-8, 9, 9-10, 12, 18, 18-19, 22, 23, 23, 26, 28, 29-30 FEB: 14 TOTAL 10, 11-12, 11-12, 12, 12-13, 14-15, 15, 15, 15-16, 17-18, 21, 23, 24-25, 26 MAR: 6 TOTAL1, 2, 11, 13, 14, 24 So, ATL peak 7 day period looks like Feb 10-16 with 9 major snow/sleetstorms. Interestingly, they've had NONE 1/31-2/9 though they've had some major icestorms then. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Dates of RDU 6"+ individual SN/IP storms: DEC: 8 TOTAL 2-3, 9-10, 11, 12-13, 17, 25-26, 27-28, 29 JAN: 13.5 TOTAL 2-3, 7-8, 7-8, 9-11, 13, 17-18, 18-19, 19, 24-25, 25-27, 26-27, 26-28, 28, 31 (this one continued til Feb 1) FEB: 16.5 TOTAL 1 (this one continued from Jan 31), 6, 6-7, 9, 9-10, 10-11, 11-13, 14, 15-17, 17-18, 17-18, 18-19, 21-22, 26, 26, 26-27, 28 MAR: 8 TOTAL 1, 1-2, 2, 2-3, 9, 10, 24, 24 APR: 1 TOTAL 3 So, interestingly enough, RDU 6 day peak period for big storms is later, Feb 26-Mar 3, when they had 8. In other words, even after all of the interesting wx to follow, we potentially still have a long way to go. And these stats don't even include icestorms, which have occurred into the first few days of March on a not so rare basis.

The last few weeks have overall been one of the most exciting periods to be a winter wx lover in a very long time in the SE US as far as having so many things to discuss forecastingwise/a good number of opportunities, and getting some good hits, especially in the Carolinas! Among other places, Columbia finally got a good snow and Charlotte got 3 measurable snows within just 2 weeks, a very rare occurrence as it has been since 2000! The results weren’t always satisfying but the point is that it has not been the least bit boring. Most of the time it isn’t nearly that interesting for such a long period of time. In saying this, keep in mind that I got no wintry precip. though light ZR got very close when I got down to 32.7 with rain, a relative rarity down here in the Sav., GA, area.

Well, it looks like La Niña barely made it to moderate per my definition on an ONI basis with a -1.0 C despite a weekly peak of only -1.1. I was thinking a -1.2 would have been needed: https://origin.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ONI_v5.php For all practical purposes, this will go down as borderline weak/moderate La Niña. So @40/70 Benchmark nailed it. Kudos!

As shown above, the latest weekly Nino 3.4 warmed 0.3 C and is back up to -0.7 C. This means the chance at this La Niña ending up peaking as only weak (under -1.0) on an ONI (trimonthly max) basis has increased somewhat. I have been expecting a moderate peak (-1.0 to -1.4 based on 3 months of weeklies averaged out) but this new warming this late in autumn tells me it may not get there. In order to get a -1.0 or colder peak, the weeklies usually have to peak ~-1.2 to -1.3 or colder. The significance of that for SE/Mid Atlantic winters is that mild winters due to SE ridge domination have a good bit higher chance when La Niña is moderate or strong per analogs. But having only a weak La Niña would mean analogs that are closely balanced between AN, NN, and BN. Actually, after weak to moderate El Niño, your next best shot at a genuinely cold SE winter is weak La Niña. So, as one in the SE who prefers BN winters, I’m hoping it stays weak. Kudos would be due for @40/70 Benchmark if it peaks as only weak.