A band of showers will quickly move through the area Wed. night but only dropping a third of an inch or less of rain for most areas. The front causing the rain will clear the area to the south Thu. leaving sun, gusty northwest winds & much cooler temps. in its wake. Afternoon temps. Thu. will struggle just to get to 70 -- as much as 15-20 degrees cooler than Wed. afternoon.
The Easter weekend weather still looks muddled, to say the least. Timing, intensity & track of a developing storm system are very much up in the air. One thing is fairly certain: a storm will evolve over or near the Southeast U.S. -- especially Sun.-Mon. though enough moisture could be nearby for a few showers Sat. It appears a significant mid latitude cyclone will develop near the eastern seaboard by early next week. But just looks at some of the differences between the longer range global forecast models:
-- GFS (U.S. Model): Intensifying low east/northeast of Jax Sun. night-Mon.
-- EUROPEAN: Weak low by Sun. night/early Mon. just east of Jax before "blowing up" Mon. & lifting north/northeast over the West Atlantic.
-- UKMET (U.K.): Intense low east of Chesapeake Bay by Mon.
-- CANADIAN: Strengthening low just east of Jax by Mon.
So with all these possible scenarios, the exact result is difficult -- to say the least -- to predict at this point. Tue. the models were even more inconsistent with an even wider array of potential outcomes. I think it's safe to say weak low pressure will be over or near the Southeast U.S. by Sun. evolving into a very intense storm in the W. Atlantic early next week. The result will be a shot of unseasonably chilly air deep into the south early next week with temps. at least 15 degrees colder than avg. for the First Coast by Mon./Tue. This transition should result in at least some rain for the weekend, maybe into Mon. with snow possible pretty far south for this late in the season. As the energy comes ashore by Thu., the storm's development should become a little better defined. There's also a storm that will move from the midwest through the Ohio Valley to the East Coast Thu.-Fri. that could play into the eventual development of the primary late weekend/early next week storm system. Obviously...I'll keep you updated & hopefully have better weekend details soon.
An interesting feature appeared on satellite & radar imagery Wed. afternoon. A north-south band of enhanced (cumulus) clouds developed from near Waycross to
Gainesville between 2 & 3pm then moved steadily eastward. The band produced no rain (not much atmospheric moisture), but I could clearly see the "flat" cumulus field as the boundary approached the t.v. station. Once the wave passed, skies briefly cleared & winds even increased a little. So what was the boundary?? It appeared to be a gravity wave. Sometimes these waves (usually relatively small or mesoscale so not generally picked up by forecast models) can produce heavy precipitation & intense thunderstorms. It seems this particular gravity wave was probably caused by a strong low & mid level jet of wind and/or possibly the approaching cold front. Click here for an interesting discussion (for weather geeks!) of gravity waves & some good examples.
Spring arrives Thu. at 1:48am EDT! The Vernal Equinox occurs as the sun moves over the celestial equator & days & nights are roughly equal in length. Contrary to popular belief, it's not exactly 12 hrs. of daylight & 12 hrs. of night. That's because the Earth's orbit around the sun is not a perfect circle but rather an ellipse. Leap year plays into whether or not the Vernal Equinox is March 20 or 21....click here for equinox info.
