After lots of waiting on what has been a very slow system to get here, the cold air has finally arrived. Tomorrow should be a rather raw day with little if any sun, a north wind at 10 to 20 miles an hour, and temperatures struggling to maintain the 30s. I can’t imagine that with as long as this cold snap has taken to get here, that anyone was surprised by it.
Looking at the surface map just a few minutes ago, I was struck by the gradient in temperatures from Central Alabama all the way back to Central Missouri. If you draw a line – a fairly straight line – to the northwest you pass through a number of cities with the following temperature readings around 8 pm:
57 – Anniston, AL
45 – Muscle Shoals, AL
36 – Jackson, TN
34 – Dyersburg, TN
26 – Poplar Bluff, MO
17 – Rolla, MO
15 – Sedalia, MO
Not sure exactly how many miles that is, something close to 500 miles, but it’s been a while since we’ve seen a 42 degree gradient like that one.
You gotta love the weather. And I envy Mr. Elliott’s posts entitled “Weather by the Numbers” so much that I just had to come up with my own version. Isn’t it great to find the weather so amazing after working in it for nearly 40 years. And who knows, maybe with the shifting look to the weather pattern and the potential for a deep trough over the eastern half of the country, the cold air will eventually bring some little frosty looking white particles from the sky. I can hope!
Snow lover at heart,
-Brian-
