Kurt's Weather Blog

Sensational Spring?

Halfway through meteorological spring, it seems to me that this has been one of the nicest our area has seen in quite a few years. While much of the country has had a hard time getting out of what feels like endless winter, we're in just the right spot to benefit from this rather unusual pattern that has brought late-season snow to the east coast and the Rockies, heavy rain and wind to California, and record breaking cold to the northern states. On the upside for Columbus and vicinity:

• 

  March azaleas
  Temperatures have been seasonable since we smashed records with our warmest February ever. March was near normal and April so far even a bit below. Our warmest temperature so far has been 85º just once, on April 3, and we've had numerous sunny days spent in the 60s and 70s. Compare that to last April, the warmest in the city's history, when we had 12 straight days in the mid 80s or higher and 90º before the month was over as an upper ridge dominated the pattern across the South. We can thank the presence of an upper trough over eastern North America for keeping temperatures from going crazy too early. The longer we can hold off using our air conditioning units, the better off we'll be, financially and otherwise.
• There's been a lack of severe weather in this area and in fact, around the entire country this spring. That's a bit puzzling, considering there has been a seemingly constant parade of storm systems sweeping from the west coast all the way across the continent. So far, the necessary ingredients have not come together with most of those systems to generate much in the way of tornadoes or other severe storms. The one exception was the March 19 system that brought a minor tornado outbreak to Alabama and Georgia but missed the Bi-Cities almost totally.
• Air quality has been unusually good this spring. Controlled burns - most of which take place on Army territory and are a necessary thing - have mostly kept smoke away from the city by taking advantage of winds from the proper direction. This has not always been the case in recent years, and the smoke and particulate matter has been known to spoil an otherwise beautiful day.
• Rainfall has been a bit sparse, and Columbus is now running nearly 7 inches below average for the year to date. But there has been just enough to allow lawns and gardens to get off to a fertile start. The only downside is that much of the rain has come on weekends, so that the frequent sunny days have largely happened during the work week. You can chalk that up to just random chance and the trend could flip at any time.
• The state's strawberry, peach, pecan, and apple crops should be better this year. While there were light frosts on March 9th and 15th, the state didn't experience anything like the devastating hard freeze that occurred on March 16 a year ago. This past winter provided sufficient chill hours for tree crops thanks mostly to a cold January, a huge turnaround from last year. Flowering trees like cherry, dogwood, bradford pear, and of course azaleas have had a prolific spring versus a subpar 2017, despite blooming early due to the February warmth.
  

  Forecast map Saturday AM (NOAA/WPC)

Short term weather: the Midwest is currently getting hammered by one of the stronger cyclones in this stormy season. Severe storms, tornadoes, ice, and blizzard conditions will be felt over a wide swath of the U.S. through the weekend. Our area will get one round of threatening weather late Saturday through the first part of Sunday. Working in our favor is that the storms will likely hit mostly after dark, which usually means they will be undergoing a weakening trend. Keep an eye on the latest forecasts tonight and Saturday, and keep in mind we need the rain - next week looks like it will be back to sunny, dry and pleasant.

Meteorologist Kurt Schmitz

Spring Takes a Timeout; DST Looms

Now that our record warm February has fooled Mother Nature into thinking spring had arrived, we get a few reminders that winter never gives up easily. No surprise there: I told you so. Temperatures in Columbus Thursday morning dropped to 35ºF for the official low, and as low as 31º at my home, with spotty frost. (Air temperatures don't have to reach freezing in order to get frost.) Friday morning could be a bit colder if skies remain clear and winds diminish, so freeze warnings will go into effect tonight for much of the area. This would merely be a light freeze if it does occur; last year we had a damaging hard freeze on March 16 (25º in Columbus) which did a number on the state's 2017 peach crop.

Average dates for last spring freeze (NWS/FFC)

A light freeze in early March is actually close to the average date of our last spring frost, so if Columbus were to hit 32º on Friday, it would not be unusual, even a bit early.

And for the foreseeable future, it looks like below normal temperatures will predominate through next week. We'll see milder readings by the weekend, but warmups will be temporary due to the parade of coast-to-coast storm systems recently seen, a pattern that will continue for awhile. Warmer air returns ahead of the system, then is wiped out by the next cold front dragging through the South. The weekend system needs to be eyed with caution, as a deepening surface low crossing the Deep South may have the potential for severe storms in the warm sector. That could happen Sunday, but is not a sure thing at all yet - stay tuned.

We could also get some good rain out of that system; no surprise as March is our wettest month with an average of 5.46" of rain. It's also the peak of our tornado season, and although things have been very quiet so far, an anomalously warm northern Gulf of Mexico could be the eventual source of the warm, humid air that is one major ingredient for severe weather. The extended stretch of cold air in the continental U.S. may delay the severe season a bit, but it could turn around in a hurry.

DST around the world

This weekend brings another clock change in most states as we go back on Daylight Saving Time at 2:00 AM Sunday. Of course, I've gone on the record a number of times that DST should be reduced to 4 or 5 months of the warm season, or even eliminated altogether. So naturally, just within the last week the Florida state legislature approved a bill making DST year-round, a truly ridiculous move. That in effect puts Florida on Atlantic Standard Time, something that has been proposed in some of the New England states and rejected, though Massachusetts and other northeastern states have a much better case for doing so because of that area's longitude and latitude. Other states are considering following Arizona and getting off of DST.

Many areas of the world have either given up on DST (like Japan, where they like to enjoy the relative cool of summer evenings) or never had it at all (mostly near the equator). North America and Europe (called "summer time" there) are really about the last holdouts. More and more, the case is being made to eliminate DST and dismiss the myths that have put forth in support of it. (Note: powerful commercial interests are responsible for expansion of DST over the years. Think Halloween and candy manufacturers. Really.)

Being retired, I don't mind the time change now as much as I did when I was working the early morning shift and had to get to sleep when it was light outside, but I still think the twice-a-year switch is more trouble than it's worth. I hope you all enjoy going to work and school in the dark for the next couple of months until we approach the summer solstice.

Meteorologist Kurt Schmitz

It Is Not Spring Yet!

Enjoying the warm weather in February? Columbus has tied or broken 6 record highs in the last 8 days, most recently today (Saturday 24th). Before you get too excited about early spring, though, think of the implications of this unseasonable weather.

My grass is already growing, the bradford pears are in bloom, and the pine trees have been producing pollen for at least a week, the earliest I've ever seen that happen in my 29 springs in Georgia. We don't normally see the yellow stuff until March, and it sometimes hangs on into April. And this comes after a cold January that brought us snow and a couple of mornings that dropped below 20ºF. Fortunately, it looks like the fruit crops in the state did get enough chill hours this winter so the industry can enjoy a better batch of peaches, apples, and pecans next season.

This month we're going to obliterate the record for the warmest February ever. For Columbus that stands at 57.9º set back in 1949, although we nearly broke that only last year (57.7º). The 30-year average mean temperature for February is 51.1º, demonstrating just how anomalous this year is as we currently stand at 61.5º, 11 degrees higher than normal! And although this is only one month's example, our climate without a doubt is changing and warm months are going to be more the rule rather than the exception in years to come.

It isn't just Columbus, nor Georgia, nor just the Southeast that is experiencing this; going back a week records were shattered all up and down the eastern third of the country for several days, with evidence in other measures of the atmosphere that had meteorologists dropping jaws about what was happening.

This early season heat has other implications for us, too. The influx of warm, moist air so early may be setting us up for a major season of severe storms and tornadoes, since the cold air hasn't actually gone away but has merely been displaced to other parts of the country and the world. Severe storms need the warm air for fuel, with the contrast against the lingering winter cold acting as a turbocharger. Other factors come into play as well. We may be in for a wild ride as we go through March and April.

And we may not be done with the cold, either. A very unusual and nearly unprecedented warming of the atmosphere at the North Pole - probably related to climate change - has essentially forced arctic air to drop south into lower latitudes, and Europe right now is bracing for a late winter deep freeze this coming week courtesy of Siberia. There's reason to believe some of that cold could eventually find its way into North America, too.

The worst possible scenario for agricultural interests here would be to have early warmth followed by a late freeze. It happened last year, and the peach industry was one that never recovered. Farmers are holding their breath it won't be two in a row.

Near term, we'll have more warm air around at least until Thursday, although clouds and showers will keep us out of the 80s and probably keep us from breaking any more records after Saturday. We could see a round of thunderstorms on Sunday and more rain Monday, then the cold front coming in Thursday may bring a potential severe threat and will be watched closely.

Meteorologist Kurt Schmitz

Warmth on the Way

I don't pay any attention to groundhog sightings this time of year, because you've got as much chance of predicting the onset of spring by flipping a coin. Meteorologists do have real, scientific data to pore over that give a good idea of which direction the weather will be going for at least a couple of weeks. (Which in itself is pretty remarkable, that something as complicated as the atmosphere can be predicted that far into the future.)

Columbus so far has had a cold start to 2018. January came in 2.5ºF below average, pretty significant but not cold enough to rank with the coldest ever. That honor goes to January 1977 (36.6º), and even already this decade we had colder Januarys in 2010, 2011, and 2014. Of course, we got a little bonus on the 17th when the city collected 2 inches of snow, our first real snow in 4 years.

Rainfall forecast Wed.-Wed. night

The pattern responsible for the arctic, 1970s-like January in the eastern U.S. has now begun to shift. A active jet stream with more of a west-to-east component is going to keep the bitter cold air masses further north with little chance of penetrating into the Deep South. That means we're going to see temperatures back up above normal for awhile, and at this time "normal" means highs in the low 60s and lows in the upper 30s. After a warm Tuesday we have a mild rain coming on Wednesday as a cold front moves in, but not much of a temperature drop behind the front on Thursday. By the weekend we're likely to be seeing lows much milder in the 50s and highs close to or above 70º.

Latest drought conditions

The Wednesday rain could be fairly significant, which would be a good thing as much of Georgia and Alabama is in a drought. The shift in the pattern is leading to a more open Gulf of Mexico, and the active jet stream will bring more cross-country storminess that should give us a bit more opportunity for rain. As the Gulf air becomes more prominent on the weather maps, it also opens the door for the possibility of severe weather down the road, which can occasionally start kicking up in February in this part of the country. At least that won't be a concern with Wednesday's system, nor the next front headed in for the weekend that could again bring rain.

Meteorologist Kurt Schmitz

Arctic Air Takes Aim on the South

Today (Saturday) may be the last time Columbus sees 50 degrees for quite a while. The news-making arctic blast is finally on our doorstep and poised to unleash a bit of winter deep into Dixie.

Round one comes just in time for New Year's Eve, as a cold front whips its way through early Sunday. Clouds will move in to keep high temperatures near of just a little above 40ºF, and there's even a chance a little sleet may be spotted in the area late in the day. Temperatures won't be cold enough to create any problems.

By New Year's morning, mid 20s are a likely bet here, and those readings will be accompanied by a brisk northerly wind, putting the wind chill in the teens. We don't expect to threaten the record low for January 1, which for Columbus stands at 18º set in 1977.

Forecast highs for Tuesday (NOAA/WPC)

After that, it just gets colder. Tuesday's high will be lucky to make it past 40º after plunging to near 20º that morning. It isn't going to warm up much at all the rest of the week, although we'll have full sunshine each day. Thursday and Friday we have - get ready - another cold front coming that will send temperatures plummeting even further. This is where we're likely going to see readings well down in the teens Friday and Saturday mornings with wind chills potentially down near zero if winds hold up. This could be the coldest weather the city has seen since January 2014. One thing to watch is the extent of snow cover in areas to the north; arctic air can't warm up much passing over snow-covered ground, especially a fresh blanket.

And yet...

Probably half the winters in Columbus see at least one low in the teens. Even last year, a very mild winter, brought a 19º low on January 8 before the rest of the month turned abnormally warm. Two years before on that same date in 2015, we even tied the record low at 13º. So this cold is not likely to be extreme by our standards. Note this: Columbus recorded single digit lows in 1962, 1963, 1966, 1970, 1977, 1982, 1983, 1985, and 1989. There has not been one since. (This is likely attributable to global warming, which is a subject for another time.) So keep it in perspective: the kind of arctic blast being forecast for the next week is nothing we haven't seen before, just as the current biting cold up north may be bitter, but nothing they can't handle.

Just do the usual preps for our little cold snap: dress warm when you go out, bring in any sensitive plants, and make sure your pets are well protected and comfortable.

And one more little reality check: even though it's cold here in eastern North America, most of the rest of the hemisphere is balmy right now, 2017 is still one of the warmest years on record, and the climate continues to warm. Don't be swayed by wisecrack comments and ignorant tweets that suggest that's not the case.

Meteorologist Kurt Schmitz

 

Winter Asserts Itself

The polar vortex has been doing its thing the last couple weeks, we just haven't noticed here in the Southeast. December in Columbus is running about 3 degrees above normal for the first 26 days of the month, and with just 5 days to go, December 2017 will go into the books as yet another warm one. Cold air masses have - as usual - been unable to drive far enough south to deliver anything cold, even by our rather modest standards.

All that could change as we head into the new year. It was mentioned in a recent post that Arctic outbreaks often undergo a time lag before reaching us in Georgia - while air mass after air mass continues to build in the polar regions and drop into the eastern U.S., eventually the cold just overwhelms the pattern and plows all the way to the Gulf and Florida. That transition may be about to happen in this current setup.

Meanwhile, winter continues to make headlines. International Falls, Minnesota - sometimes called the "nation's icebox" - hit -36ºF this morning, a record low for the date even in that notoriously frigid border town (their coldest weather usually waits until January). Erie, Pennsylvania on the shore of Lake Erie, has had more than 60 inches of snow in less than 3 days! That stunning amount shatters all kinds of snowfall records not just locally but in the whole Keystone State. (Moral: if you want to experience a white Christmas, be careful what you wish for.) In Oswego County, New York, a co-op observer measured an astonishing 62.2 inches of lake-effect snow in 48 hours. This morning, snowflakes fell as far south as Greenville, North Carolina.

Projected lows for Tuesday, January 2 (NOAA/WPC)

So when's our turn? Latest model data suggests merely cool weather from now through Sunday, followed by a sharp turn to cold right around the new year. Lows  could reach well down into the 20s and possibly threaten the upper teens next week. At least for a day or two highs could struggle to get out of the 30s. This would be a good thing - our trees need their "chill hours" to flourish in the spring, and we're not off to a good start with the early winter warmth. And of course, any time cold air gets established, we'll have to keep an eye out for snow opportunities.*

So, has global warming been put on hold or something? Hardly. North America is at this time by far the coldest part of the hemisphere, relative to average. The rest of the world is by and large running above normal in temperature. Which implies that once the cold pattern breaks, things could get really warm by mid-January over areas now in the deep freeze.

Bring on some winter!

Meteorologist Kurt Schmitz

*Current model runs are not depicting any snow for us. We'll stay tuned for later developments.

December: A Wintry Change?

Those who have enjoyed a mild November have only a few more days to do so. The changes shouldn't be too shocking, as I've been hinting at this change for more than a week on our morning and noon broadcasts on News3. Now, the details are starting to get a little clearer as to how this turnaround will take place and how much of a change.

November was warm and dry, with an average mean temperature 2.1º above normal. Rainfall of 1.62" was more than 2 inches below average. That puts a lid on the September-November (meteorological) fall season, which for Columbus and much of the country was significantly warmer than normal.

6-10 Day outlook (NOAA/CPC)

And now a few days into December, it's still warm and both Monday and Tuesday will likely bring temperatures close to 70. That may be it for awhile. A major change in the weather pattern is in order, one that will feature a deep trough over the East and a big, warm ridge in the West. The pattern will allow the delivery or Canadian and Arctic air masses deep into the South. Leading the turnaround will be a cold front slated to come through Tuesday night or early Wednesday.

The front is likely to bring rain and possibly a few thunderstorms late Tuesday into early Wednesday, but will pass by quickly - then comes the chill. Wednesday's high is not likely to make it out of the 50s, and that will be just the beginning. Even colder weather should be on the way for next weekend, likely to bring our first hard freezes of the season with lows dropping into the 20s. This is a good thing, because the fruit and other trees that require "chill hours" need to get off to a good start this winter, unlike last year when we experienced too much warmth for a really bountiful crop.

Forecast highs Thursday (NOAA/WPC)

But despite the cold forecast, we should keep it in perspective. Even though the pattern itself looks like a classic one for a vicious cold outbreak, this will be nowhere near record breaking cold, here or in the rest of the country. It'll just be a nice preview of winter, a balancing act of nature serving to offset some of the warmth we've had the last two months. This pattern switch toward below normal should last at least through mid-month.

It will be harder and harder for us to experience the kind of extreme cold outbreaks we saw in the 1950s through 1980s due to our warming global climate, partly because of the higher temperatures and decreasing ice around the North Pole.

Blog readers: make sure you tune in for our morning and noon newscasts this week as this will be the last time you'll see me on the air. My last day at WRBL is Friday, as I explained in another post several weeks ago. The blog, though, will continue!

Kurt Schmitz

Senior (soon to be Retired) Meteorologist

Changes in Time; Little Change in Weather

More light in the early mornings, and less in the late afternoon and evening hours will be with us beginning Sunday as Georgia and Alabama make the semi-annual switch from Daylight to Standard Time. For Columbus, that will shift our daily sunrise from around 8:00 to 7:00 AM (for now; it will resume getting later each day until around the winter solstice in December). But on the other end, the sunset will be an hour earlier, as it will go dark before 6:00 in the evening.

The change occurs officially at 2:00 AM Sunday local time; residents should set clocks back one hour upon retiring Saturday night. Those who forget will be an hour too early for anything they have scheduled on Sunday, but following the protocol will allow folks to gain an additional hour of sleep over the weekend. We are not actually "gaining" an hour of time, just shifting the way time is being kept, or you can think of it as getting back the hour we "lost" back in the spring.

It is also frequently recommended that residents use this time to replace batteries in household smoke and CO2 detectors in order to keep them working for the next year.

I won't bother to go into the reasons for dumping DST for good (many countries have done so) or compromising by shortening it to 5 or 6 months, which would make much more sense than the current 8-month system here in the U.S.  There are too many big money interests with a stake in the current system to ever hope for elected officials to change it. Myths about DST abound, and people still get confused twice a year, or consider it an unnecessary chore. No need to go into another full rant about it; I'll save that for next spring!

As for the weekend weather, it doesn't seem much like early November; although most Novembers do have a few 80-degree days during the month, it's unusual to experience a multi-day stretch of well above normal temperatures. My forecast is calling for low to mid 80-degree highs all the way through the beginning of next week, with lows in the 60s also above normal. Check wrbl.com/weather for updates over the weekend.

Rain chances are limited to a spotty shower or two possible on Saturday, and then not again until around Wednesday when a stronger front is likely to drop into the Gulf states. That will also put an end to the unseasonable warmth as a cooler air mass filters in behind the front. Plenty of cold air is now beginning to build in Canada, but the mechanism to carry it deep into the South is not going to be present in the upper air pattern for the foreseeable future.

Kurt Schmitz, Senior Meteorologist

 

Summer Still Could Sizzle

Nobody should be complaining about how Summer 2017 has been going so far. Columbus went through June with below normal temperatures and adequate rainfall, while July so far has been just enough above normal to balance out June. Rainfall in July has been above normal, leaving the area green and moist, and at least prepped for whatever heat may await us the rest of the summer.

And it looks like some of that heat may be on the way. Our little run of daily showers and thunderstorms could be coming to an end soon, as the pattern shifts away from the Bermuda High setup we've seen for a few weeks. Widespread showers and storms can be expected this Monday afternoon, then less activity on Tuesday, and within another day or two the rain chances should dwindle to nearly nothing as an upper ridge takes hold over the middle portions of the country and builds over the Southeast (in July you can almost always count on a minimum 10% chance of a storm springing up with the heat).

Average peak of summer high temps (NOAA/NCDC)

Climatologically, we're at the peak of summer right now. If you figure the daily average temperatures for a given location and plot them on a smooth graph, our part of west Georgia and east Alabama sees the highest maximum temperatures between July 15 and 25 (Columbus proper: around the 20th - see image). This is a month after the solstice and in a period when days are actually getting shorter. (Why is it hottest a month or more after the most daylight? Explanation here.)

And by later this week, it looks like we're about to see our hottest weather of the summer so far. 96º is the hottest in Columbus this summer; that happened last Thursday. As the jet streak is displaced far northward, an upper ridge is forecast to develop in the middle third of the country and extend its reach deep into the

Jet Stream forecast Friday

southeastern states. A strong ridge in July is inevitably going to lead to heat, and in our area will also stabilize the atmosphere to a degree, making it tough for daily thunderstorms to develop. Current indicators based on model data  suggest that Friday and Saturday could be the peak of the heat, before the ridge begins to break down a bit.

That's the one major change in our weather for the week ahead - keep cool and hope we get rain today and Tuesday for it may be the last we'll see in awhile.

Kurt Schmitz, Senior Meteorologist

Bring on July!

Summer is advancing, and up to now we've been able to avoid any serious heat. Just five years ago on June 30, 2012 Columbus broke its all-time high with 106ºF, sandwiched in between a couple of 105ºs. This was part of a three day heat wave at the end of June/beginning of July that year. An interesting footnote to this was that the first two-thirds of that month had actually been below normal in temperature prior to the heat surge. June 2012 was also quite dry with less than half the average rainfall for the month. In contrast, this June has been unusually wet, which doesn't mean we can avoid a heat wave later in the summer but might help keep highs closer to average for awhile.

Weather prospects are looking brighter for Columbus and the valley over this first weekend of July. First, we get one more day of scattered to numerous showers and thunderstorms Friday. Several factors have come together to give us more than ample rainfall these last two days: a moist air mass in place, a weak upper air disturbance, and just enough of a daytime rise in temperatures to add to instability. This trend continues today, at least until the feature aloft gets caught in the larger scale pattern and is swept away.

Beginning Saturday, the departure of the upper wave will allow for a bit more sunshine, and just enough instability to keep open the chance for isolated showers and thunderstorms, driven mainly by the extra heating. Temperatures will respond by embarking on a warming trend that will take us to the 4th of July with highs climbing back into the low to mid 90s and mornings that will continue to be quite muggy.

Summer temperature data

The more isolated nature of the showers we're forecasting over the coming week is pretty much what we normally expect in July. It's the month with the most thunderstorms and second wettest (behind March) on average for Columbus. But it's also the hottest month, by a small margin over August, despite the gradually declining daylight; we lose a half-hour (31 minutes, actually) from the 1st of July to the end of the month.

But around the world, I expect we may see more eye-popping heat records like this: the remarkable 129º temperature recorded in Iran. And that's not a dry heat; dew points there occasionally reach levels seen nowhere else on earth - as high as 90ºF. Some scientists think that parts of the Middle East could become uninhabitable for humans as the world's climate continues to warm.

Kurt Schmitz, Senior Meteorologist