A friend in Virginia posted on her social media that she was going from a light jacket to a full-blown winter scene on Monday. A friend in Maryland asked me how the area went from 65 degrees F to a winter storm in less than 24 hours. In parts of Alabama and Georgia, the temperatures in the seventies gave way to snow. I call it weather whiplash. How did it happen?
On Monday, January 3rd, the surface temperatures were the same as the previous day.
The Climate Change Institute is located at the University of Maine.
My explanation of an inflatable bounce house is what starts it all. I am going somewhere with this. If you've been in a bounce house, you know that pressing down in one part of the inflatable is associated with another going up. Think about what happened when you pushed down on one part of the waterbed. The atmosphere is fluid. There are a number of wave patterns within it. The areas of lower heights are called troughs and the areas of higher heights are called ridges.
There is a relationship between pressure, density, and atmospheric waves.
The NWS Jet Stream.
We spend a lot of time looking at upper air weather maps and model output trying to figure out how the waves are moving. On the morning of January 3rd, 2022, the first graphic shows areas of cold and warm air. A more careful look at the patterns of color reveals a series of trough-ridge patterns and the jet stream. The ridging has given way to a trough pattern with colder air over the western Atlantic Ocean. Some of you experienced a "season shift" over night, but there is more.
The writer's son is going to the Miami Zoo on New Year's Eve in 2021.
Marshall Shepherd.
The recent weather whiplash event is the result of troughs, ridges, and temperature gradients, but the complex relationships among temperature, density, pressure, and wind are further discussed at this link. The continental U.S. is still under the influence of troughing in the Intermountain West and ridging in the Southeast according to the Weather Prediction Center. The eastern United States experienced a lot of heat. I was in Miami for the Orange Bowl. The temperature was in the eighties at the Zoo.
In Atlanta, friends were texting me about the warm temperatures. Atlanta experienced its warmest New Year's Day on record at 78 degrees F, according to a Georgia Tech climate scientist. Bill Crosson, a former NASA research scientist, said that the month of December was the second warmest on record. Atlanta experienced its 3rd warmest December on record. The Climate Perspectives tool on the Southeast Regional Climate Center website shows average temperature rankings for the month of December in the Southeast.
The mean temperatures were observed for December 2021.
Jordan and SERCC.
How did the places end up with snow and storms? A mix of severe weather and rain from the Gulf Coast to the Mid-Atlantic region was brought by a developing low pressure system. The cloud pattern shown in the satellite image of the storm is familiar.
Satellite image of the storm on January 3, 2022.
It's the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.
The low pressure system is gaining strength over the Southeast and is wrapping itself up into acounterclockwise circulation. The cold front is represented by the white-blue tail feature extending into Florida. The yellow-orange colors behind it show the cold, dry air. The systems tap into differences in temperature and other upper level processes to convert potential energy into wind, storms, and so forth. The map shows changes in surface temperature on January 3rd, 2021.
On the morning of January 3rd, 2022, the surface temperature changed over a 3-hur period.
It's the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.
The map shows that the cold air moved in behind the warm air to the north of the Carolinas. A grab-bag of precipitation was happening on the morning of January 3rd, 2021. The Weather Prediction Center said on Sunday that there will be severe storms on Monday, and that there will be significant winter weather in the Central/Southern Appalachians and the Mid-Atlantic. The Washington, D.C. area was in a good spot for snow with 4 to 10 inches possible. The warmer sector was likely to get some rain.
On the morning of January 3rd, 2022. The fronts are visible in the eastern U.S.
It's the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.
This is a weather event. That is stated up front. It happened in the context of extremely warm temperatures for late December and early January. The system brought storms, snowfall, and more because of the differences in temperature. I am sitting in the Atlanta area and listening to wind gusts up to 50 mph. That is related to the weather system I just described.
