Winter Hits with a Full Blast

After a mild December, winter's back with a vengeance!  You might be glad to hear it's only temporary.

Columbus saw the temperature drop from 50º to a low of 13º this morning in roughly 15 hours. This tied the record low for January 8 set back in 1970.  My own thermometer read 11.8º at its lowest point.  Auburn came in with 9º, and Callaway Gardens also reported 9.  The coldest, of course, was found in the higher elevations of north Georgia: Ellijay got as cold as 6º, Blue Ridge dropped to 4º, and Blairsville a bone-chilling 2º above zero.

As it turned out, this cold snap wasn't too far off from the one we experienced exactly one year ago.  Columbus had a low of 11 on the 7th, and parts of north Georgia were below zero.  Our wind chill got as low as 1 last year; this year it was 3 at 5 AM.  (Remember wind chill is a derived quantity, not a measurement, and thus only an estimate of the effect of wind and cold together.)  Still, it was not quite cold enough to make Columbus's Top 10.

It did get a bit colder than expected, though.  I was concerned about that last night when I noticed the temperature in Nashville was 10º already by mid-evening, with that air headed straight for us. One reason the temperature drop exceeded expectations a bit may have been the new snow cover in the Midwest (see map) which fell on Tuesday morning. Cold air can modify some moving over bare ground, but warms very little over freshly fallen snow.  Our forecasts were within 4 degrees which is still pretty good for a rapidly changing situation like this.

This cold air is also very dry.  With a dew point near zero, you bring that air inside and warm it up to 68 or so, the relative humidity is about 6%!  Time to break out the Chapstick, and watch out for those metal doorknobs!  If you have a home barometer, take note of how high it is - 30.63 was the barometer reading at its highest point this morning; we rarely see it any higher than that in Columbus.

Tonight won't be as cold but we'll still have a hard freeze, then a slow warmup through the weekend.  Next week is looking much milder as a pattern shift is likely to bring us back into the 60s, plus a chance for some rain.

Kudos to the Muscogee Co. School District for allowing schools to open early so the kids could get out of the cold this morning.  It was an appropriate response to today's weather rather than an overreaction.  Just dress warmly when you head outdoors today!

Kurt Schmitz, Senior Meteorologist            

Comments

[Kelly Turner-Thorne]

Thank you for the update on weather! It was definitely a shock to see the temperatures plunge last night.