WEATHER
We started the new work week with some COLD temperatures across the Midstate…check out this morning’s lows!
We’ll gradually warm up over the next few days — lots of sunshine today, but temperatures will still only make it up to the mid 50s this afternoon:
Another chilly night tonight — most of the Midstate will dip down to around 40, or into the 30s:
That’s cold enough for another Freeze Warning along the Cumberland Plateau, and a Frost Advisory elsewhere:
A more-substantial warm-up is in store for us Tuesday…highs will reach the mid 60s, with lots of sunshine overhead once again.
We’ll reach the 60s again on Wednesday, but with more cloud cover and the chance for a shower or two. The best chance of showers and thunderstorms will arrive late Wednesday night and early Thursday morning:
The Storm Prediction Center has included the southern half of the Midstate in an extended severe-weather threat area:
To be honest, I’m not buying that just yet. The early-morning timing of the storms, along with a limited amount of instability, should help to keep our severe potential low. The SPC’s SREF (short-range ensemble forecast) model shows only a 5-10% chance of “organized” thunderstorms Thursday morning:
And the “analog” forecast (comparing Wednesday night and Thursday’s pattern to similar historical pattern) points to the severe weather threat shaping up farther to our west:
That said, it is late March, which means every thunderstorm that develops will have our full attention. We’ll keep you posted on any severe weather threat that develops.
Once Thursday’s system passes by, we’ll clear out on Friday. I’m leaving Saturday’s forecast rain-free — the American GFS model says it will rain, the European model says in won’t…take your pick. A better chance of rain shapes up again Easter Sunday, but it’s the last day of the 7-day forecast, so at this point it’s too early to be too worried:
LINKS
Some Monday-morning nerdiness for you…
- The northeastern U.S. is dealing with an early-spring nor’easter…here’s why those particular storms are so challenging.
- Why do we still hear “we didn’t know it was coming” so often after severe weather outbreaks?
- New poll numbers show that more Americans are taking climate change seriously.
- Climate change is now part of official American military policy as well.
- A high school senior is thinking way outside the box, but it’s an interesting idea — how solar panels in space could help power everything here on Earth.
- A pair of comets will make a (relatively) close pass to Earth this week.
- A great summary of everything we’ve learned about Pluto, from the New Horizons fly-by last summer.
- Another spacecraft, the Dawn mission, has been investigating the dwarf planet Ceres in the asteroid belt…here’s what scientists have learned so far.
- NASA is working on plans to further investigate the “ice giant” planets — Uranus and Neptune — in the 2030s. (Yes, it takes THAT long to plan these missions.)
- An exo-planet with a very weird orbit gave astronomers a glimpse of reflected starlight recently.
- Uber is looking to get in the self-driving car market.
- Here’s some technology we can all get behind — pizza-delivery robots.
- Yet another simple question with a complicated answer: how big is the internet?
- If you take melatonin to get to sleep, you should really read this — most people who use the supplement are overusing it.
- Some good sleep news — innovations that are making sleep easier.
